


A March in the Marches

by DinosaurTheology



Series: Brief, Brilliant Miracles [9]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Antiva, Civil War, Diplomacy, Dubious Morality, F/F, F/M, Free Marches (Dragon Age), Kirkwall (Dragon Age), Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Ostwick, Politics, Rivain, Romance, Starkhaven, Tevinter Imperium, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-05 19:48:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 59,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5388074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DinosaurTheology/pseuds/DinosaurTheology
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian Vael, the Prince of Starkhaven, has gathered his allies and declared war on the troubled, notoriously maleficar infested city of Kirkwall to avenge the loss of his beloved Grand Cleric Elthina. Those already living there, and some luminaries abroad, take exception to this action. Varric Tethras and Kirkwall's Champion, Declan Hawke, work to marshal the forces of the Inquisition--and a few old friends besides--to come to the beleaguered city's aid. The Free Marches, a land where peace is tenuous at the best of times, seethes with potential violence that threatens to break into all out war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Letter from Bodhan

**Author's Note:**

> Don't own Dragon Age, but it's a good place to write. I've really enjoyed writing this long project.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A letter from home reveals foul deed afoot in and around Kirkwall.

Varric Tethras tossed the letter onto the table in front of him and drained the pint of lager in one long, deep draw. He'd wondered, from time to time, when "just about the limit" would become "entirely too much," but that didn't seem like a really pressing question, anymore. This was, most likely, it. That famous thread that broke the proverbial bronto's back.

He wasn't surpised, really. This was the kind of thing that happened when the world entire lost its damn mind. A hole torn in the sky and one of the ancient magisters running wild and free on a homemade archdemon wasn't the kind of thing that would even slow the internecine warfare which had plagued the polites of the Free Marches for centuries, ever since Tevinter had withdrawn to her modern borders. This whole mess was, he hated to admit, typical of Marchers. What was the fun in standing off against an Orlesian intrigue, legion of Nevarran Royal Lancers or actual terrors from the furthest corners of the Fade when you could stagger like drunken chevaliers during Le Nuit du Sang and murder other Marchers? He growled, deep in this throat, and sent Flissa after another pint--and a fifth of something stronger, perhaps Abyssal Peach or the Flames of Our Lady.

He didn't notice the Iron Bull standing over him until the huge Qunari spoke. "Hey, salroka. What's shaking?"

"The Free Marches, mostly. Seems like a bad day to be from Kirkwall."

Bull chuckled. "Isn't it always a bad day to be from Kirkwall?" When Varric offered no response apart from a glare, he said, "Sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to be insensitive. It's just that your hometown has a higher percentage of blood mages per square mile than Minrathous and Vyrantium combined, and none of them seem to have the sense to realize that becoming an abomination is an unwise career move."  
"You and the Prince of Starkhaven seem to have taken a similarly dim view of things."

"Starkhaven, hmm..." Bull lowered his considerable bulk into the chair, across the table from Varric, and stroked his scarred chin. "Sebastian Vael, if I'm not mistaken?"

"The one and only."

"Wasn't he a companion of yours and Declan Hawke?"

Varric wobbled his hand. "Peripherally. We aided one another when we crossed paths, especially at the behest of Grand Cleric Elthina--she was a fine woman and I still can't quite forgive Blondie for blowing her to the Maker. But..." He shrugged. "A zealot like Vael, even one who earnestly seeks to do good, isn't going to be the best bosom companion to the Korcari Wilds raised, scout archer son and brother to apostates. Especially since he just happened to end up married to a Dalish blood mage that Vael wouldn't have wept to see in the Gallows--or on one."

When Flissa returned with Varric's drink, Bull ordered one of his own and patted the barmaid's ample bottom. She batted at his hand, earning a wink, and sauntered off giggling. "Vael sounds like a real prince, Varric." He realized what he'd said and chuckled.

"Choir Boy probably isn't as bad as I'm making him out to be, he's just... rigid. He doesn't understand that the world is a little bit more complex than he learned in Chantry school and that sort of attitude doesn't always make the best ruler."

"Sounds a little like Par Vollen. Or Orzammar. Or Val Royeaux. Those in power tend to get a little hidebound about things." Flissa returned. Bull thanked her warmly for the drink, received a lingering hand on his cheek in response. He took a long sip that left foam on his upper lip. "But I can't imagine you're this agitated over an old acquaintance without some serious provocation. What's got things so stirred up?"

Varric gestured to the letter. Bull picked it up between two fingers, a curiously delicate gesture for such large hands, and read.

"So?" Varric said. "What do you think?"

_ Master Declan: _

_Greetings! We all hope this letter finds you well in Skyhold. Sad to say that the same doesn't hold true for us in here in Kirkwall. A fortnight ago young Lord Vael, who I'm sure you remember as a serious but well-meaning lad, has gathered the armies of Starkhaven, Tantervale and Hasmal and marched on the city. There are even rumors, which I don't have believe, of psiloi wearing Nevarran colors creeping through the Planasene Forest and Vinmark Mountain. Both the young prince of Starkhaven and Caspar Pentaghast might be ambitious, but neither one strikes me as an absolute fool!_

_Things are very nervous in Kirkwall. The Exalted League of Marchers (that's what Prince Sebastian names his army--stops just short of calling it an Exalted March and taking the Chantry's authority entirely upon himself) has got the city surrounded. There is a squadron of ships from Hercinia blockading the harbor and elements from Markham seem to have cut the roads to the Wounded Coast and Ostwick. Things were worse during the affair with the Arishok and the days of Meredith and Orsino's rampage far darker, but I feel things could grow very bleak for us indeed if matters do not change._

_One bright spot, in all this mess, has been Captain Aveline. She's taken charge of the city, in lieu of a viscount, and marshaled the guard, army, populace and what remains of our mages in defense of our beloved home. If we somehow survive this mess, by some blessing of the Ancestors or Maker, I hope that the nobles of this city have the good sense to make her our permanent ruler. Kirkwall could not ask for a more responsible, nobler leader. She is, as you well know, far better than we deserve._

_I shall write again, if I am able._

_Yours in faith,_

_Bodhan Feddic._

_PS. Orana and Sandal send their love, too._

Bull shook his huge, horned head. "I think that Master Feddic could win a prize for being chatty during a high dragon attack. And Sebastian Vael sounds like about as much of an asshole as I always imagined he'd be."

"Amen on both counts. But Sebastian wasn't always quite so rigid... he could even be charming, in his own way. Elthina dying unhinged him, though. Did a lot of people." Varric drew a long drink from his mug.

"Not that it's any of my business," Bull said, "but how did this letter addressed to Declan Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall, end up in your possession?"

"Declan and I generally shared our troubles over a pint or two of ale, back in the Hanged Man. He came looking for me, as soon as some poor, ragged Kirkwaller ran up the trail and brought it to him. We've been trying to drink up a solution to it ever since." He looked for a few extra drops in the mug of lager. "To think that there might be actual hanged men in front of the Hanged Man, soon. I don't like to dwell on it."

"Then don't."

"That's easy for you to say, Bull. You folks up in Par Vollen are born into your roles, or at least thrust into them from an early age. Everything runs pretty smoothly. Kirkwall is... special. Rough around the edges but filled with good people--even if more of them are blood mages than the rest of Thedas is entirely comfortable with. I've got a lot of friends there. Sebastian does, too. I just hope he remembers it."

He called for another round of lager. "I think you're forgetting, yourself, that I went Tal-Vashoth to save my boys. I don't have the comfort of the Qun, anymore--I've got to make my own decisions, be my own man, just like you and all the rest of the kabethari in the world. Besides, even before that I was in Seheron. Certainty doesn't exist there. Making it from sunrise to breakfast without meeting an assassin is a surprise, let alone sunset."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Flissa brought the lager. Varric went looking for an answer there, again, came up with nothing but foam on his upper lip. "I just wish there was something I could do. Anything. All the money of the Tethras trading empire, my connections with the Merchants' Guild, and it doesn't mean anything."

"Look," Bull said, "I'm not saying that we're going to go and fight this League of Extraordinary Nug-Lickers head on, or anything, because that's not what we do, but I just wanted you to know what the Chargers are at your disposal, free of charge." He chuckled at his own terrible joke. "Maybe some superior auxilia running loose in Wildervale, tearing up supply lines and capturing camps, might cause this Choir Boy of yours to start getting a different message from his Maker. Or at least his allies."

"Thank, Bull. I really appreciate."

"Appreciate what? The Chargers are going kind of stir crazy, stuffed up in Skyhold all the time. Skinner's about to chew her own leg off. Dalish just mopes around all the time, setting stuff on fire. We need to get out there and raise a little hell."

"That's not a bad idea, you know."

"Precisely! I'll get Krem, we'll set out for Wildervale tomorrow morning and the Extra-Special Crispy Friend Marching Moonbats won't know what hit them." He finished his lager, started to rise.

Varric put out a hand to stop him. "No, not just the Chargers. Raising a little hell. Or a lot." He frowned. "I can't believe that this is just a single, dumbass decision by Sebastian Vael--the Marches in this much turmoil would help the Elder One too much. This seems organized. We need to bring Lord Trevelyan and the rest in on this."

Bull sagged. "Aw, you mean a war council?"

"That's exactly what I mean. We're going to need heavy infantry, siege engines, cavalry, mages, Templars..." He counted each element of the list on his fingers. "I wouldn't say no to some more exotic troops, if Mischa or Declan can swing them, like Vashoth swordsmen, Avvar blades, Chasind warband or some howlers on horseback with bows from the Anderfels."

"That sounds like one hell of a party. With all those different elements running around you'd need some serious command and control." He doodled in a puddle of spilled lager, imagining troop movements. "Avvar and Chasind loathe each other, for one thing, and wouldn't hesitate to turn their axes to something other than Starkhaven or allied troops if you gave them half a minute. And those Orth madmen from the Wandering Hills hate pretty much everyone; they might take a wild hair up the ass at any given moment and start sprinkling arrows on pikemen from Antiva, Orlesian men-at-arms, or another Orth clan that's left them particularly offended."

"I know," Varric said. His face looked as sour as his stomach felt. "That's why this council is so important. I'm going to need everyone on board. I'll need Josie to talk to her father so that he can pull on the Antivan plutocrats, Leliana to harangue, cajole and outright threaten the Orlesian court, Ser Barris to organize our Templars..."

"Ugh." Bull leaned back in his chair, laid his arm over his eyes. "War councils take forever, and Cullen's going to drone on and on about callibrating those damn trebuchets all night. This sounded like a lot more fun when I was just going to be running around Wildervale with my boys, making a mess."

"You'll still make it... just think of this as getting our ducks in a row so that we can make an even bigger mess." Varric's brow furrowed. "Because if I know Sebastian, and I used to at least, he's already made a pretty big one."

"Yeah, okay. But... callibrations." Bull shuddered.

"Don't worry, just leave everything to old Varric Tethras." He grinned, suddenly. His frown had turned upwards quite nastily. "I think it's time that Declan and I pay our old friend Sebastian a visit."

Bull laughed. "You're all right, Varric my man. Just the right kind of evil."


	2. The War Table

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Inquisition's Inner Circle meets to determine the best way to proceed against Sebastian Vael's attempted annexation of Kirkwall.

Declan Hawke stood tall, proud and barrel chested before the leaders of the Inquisition and their advisors. Leandra's ultramarine eyes burned around Malcom's aquiline nose. The scarlet tattoos that marked his Korcari origins crawled livid on his pale, southern skin. He spoke eloquently of the Free Marches in general, Kirkwall in particular, their strategic importance and the blow to the Inquisition's morale it would be if they were surrendered to the depredations of the Elder One or a petty crusader like Prince Sebastian.

He gestured with huge, hard hands. They were worn and callused from years of pulling a bowstring. The fringe on his buff, halla hide wamus flapped and billowed. From another man it might have seemed ridiculous; from the famous Champion of Kirkwall the touch of theatricality seemed grave indeed.

He finished by saying, "I have lost one home to fire and the sword, in Lothering, and though I may not be able to live in Kirkwall I would not lose another. Help me, members of the Inquisition, as you've helped so many others in the past. Help those still living in Kirkwall as you helped the mages, as you aided the Templars. They need you. Without you..." He smiled, wryly. "Even in a city like my adopted home, many innocents will surely die."

The Inner Circle's contemplative silence remained largely unbroken. Merrill stood, clapped and whooped. "Hooray! Ma vhenan, that was magnificent! You truly are a wonderful speaker." She interrupted her applause and nudged Fiona, who sat beside her. "I'm very proud of him. He's my husband, you know."

She smiled, indulgently, and uttered something between a sigh and throaty laugh. "Yes, da'len, you might have told me once, twice or a hundred times. I'm old but I'm not senile, regardless what Madame de Fer might have told you."

Blood rushed to Merrill's cheeks, painting crimson flesh that was even paler than Declan Hawke's. "I could never think you senile, Grand Enchanter. I get excited, from time to time, and when I do I have a tendency to babble. Keeper Marethari said my tongue sprang fleeter than a frightened halla. I'm sorry."

Fiona waved off her apology. "Do not be sorry, sweetling. I was picking on you but gently, as I'm sure your Keeper must have been. It's a luxury the old reserve for the young ones we love."

Cullen stood when Merrill sat. "Well spoken all," he said. "And the situation is worrying. The Free Marches are a crossroads between our staunch allies in Ferelden and our friends in the great banking houses of Antiva. Without their obstacle it becomes possible for Tevinter as a whole, not just the Venatori, to flex its not inconsiderable muscle and act as a threat to Nevarra, Antiva and Orlais. Something must be done."

He ran his hand through sandy hair that was considerably thinner than half a year past. Lyrium withdrawal was one hell of a thing. "All that said, the Inquisition is a voluntary organization of believers and associates from across the nations of Thedas. We are united as a group of 'special forces' to counteract the threat of the Elder One and other problems arising from the Breach. Starkhaven is the largest polis in the Free Marches. With the armies of Tantervale and Hasmal besides she can field more than we could ever dream of standing down in open combat. That route is, I am afraid, quite hopeless."

Varric just managed to keep from spitting on the floor. "And so we let Kirkwall burn, just like that? I knew you always hated the place, Curly, but that's cold."

"My relationship with the city is complex, Varric, but it was my home for over a decade. I would not see it's people suffer any more than they already have."

He sat back, seemed placated. "All right, yeah. Thanks."

"The fact remains, however, that facing the Exalted League of Marchers with our soldiery could only lead to defeat on a grand scale, there and in the Inquisition's other projects. We have available to us some of the most skilled operators in Thedas, in sensitive positions where they may do great work, but not in any great numbers. This is why another approach would be the most effective." He gestured to Josephine. "I will let my colleague explain the rest."

She stood, resplendent in politically chosen red and gold ruffles and lace with a silver chain around her throat to show solidarity with the beleaguered people of Kirkwall, cleared her throat, and spoke. "Gentlemen, ladies, I believe you know that the great power of the Inquisition lies in the influence we wield with the noble and great all over Thedas."

"Yes," the Iron Bull said, "along with the low-down, dirty and outright rotten. We can't forget them, sweetness." General laughter ensued.

"Quite." She glowered at him. He had the grace to appear shamefaced. "With all these high ranking personages we could easily trade on favors owed, family connections and fast friendships to place military elements in places where they could stop the Exalted League of Marchers from molesting the people of Kirkwall. We can count on elements from Antiva City, Ferelden and Ostwick, likely Seleny as well. If the Maker is good we might even be able to borrow a few chevaliers errant from Val Chevin and Jader. There are almost always a few around, looking to make a name after winning their spurs."

Cassandra snorted. "It sounds like you are planning on widespread slaughter between the Vinmark and Minanter. When did you become so bloodthirsty, little kestrel?" She smiled, ruefully.

Josie waved her hands. "No, no, it's not like that. Really! If we are lucky there won't be any fighting at all. Er..." She twisted a long, dark curl between her fingers. "Perhaps a little bit. Very little. I hope."

Varric cackled and slapped his knee. "Andraste's crispy coccyx, you're gonna win us a war without any fighting. Ruffles... that one's really original." He collected himself. "And the thing is, you'll probably make it happen. I'm starting to think you could charm the sun into rising in the west."

"Thank you," she murmured. "I think you know only because you possess the skill yourself."

Vivienne spoke up. "I hate to sound like I'm being obstructionist, darling, but I really do find myself mystified at how all this cleverness is going to be implemented. I'm not near the military genius that dear Cullen is--" She smiled at the former Knight-Captain. "But I do believe I've never heard of a war won without a great deal of bloodshed."

"We are going to defeat the League without fighting them Madame de Fer, or at least without fighting them en masse, by placing our allies in strategic locations to stymie their progress." She pointed to the map, spoke rapidly. "Think about it; while the Chargers disrupted their supply lines in Wildervale, picchieri from Antiva City and Seleny could block the heavy infantry from Starkhaven and Tantervale from getting back in time to ruin their mischief."

Bull rumbled, deep in his chest. "Wonderful. I do so hate having my mischief ruined."

She smiled and went on, fingers a blur. "The chevaliers errant, hungry for glory, could clear the road between Ostwick and Kirkwall of those louts from Markham so that Lord Trevelyan's sister could provide a relief column for the city."

The Inquisitor chuckled, from his position at the head of the table. "Truly. I think if you left Evelyn the Heir out of this you'd pretty swiftly have another war on your hands."

"It would not be prudent," Cullen said, "for the heir to Ostwick and the Lord-Marshal of Markham to be caught brawling in the mud like common thugs, after all."

Trevelyan laughed. "Oh, I don't know, Cullen. Evelyn sort of likes being a common thug. She told me once that it kept her wits sharp. I think we were stealing pastries, at the time."

"At any rate," Josephine said, "though another front opening between two cities in the Free Marches would be unwise, the 'unsolicited antics' of young warriors on a grande chevauchee would not be seen as anything untoward. This will allow Teyrn Hudric, in turn, to send Lady Evelyn with Ostwick's army so that she may aid their neighbors in throwing off an oppressive yoke."

Leliana smiled wickedly. "Oppressive yoke... I'm particularly fond of that wording, Josie-love. It's quite dramatic."

Blackwall, firmly ensconced in his seat beside Josephine, squeezed her small, brown hand. "Fancy talk about simple blokes like me hitting things... it's what you pay her for, isn't it?"

Leliana nodded, drummed idly on the table. "And she's worth every copper piece."

Vivienne cleared her throat. "Brilliance of Josephine aside, and brilliant you are darling, as these two seem intent on reminding us once a minute at least, I can see only one or two problems with this plan. I will grant that disrupting the Exalted League of Marchers in this manner would make it much less likely for them to engage in actual large-scale combat with our allies--would bewilder them so that it might be almost, indeed, impossible--but I still do not see how we are going to get the people into the places we need them so that these actions can take place."

"That's cleverer still," Leliana said. "And my personal brainchild. It involves the crystals we found in the Forbidden Oasis, swashbuckling and Solas."

Vivienne raised an eyebrow. "Three elements which I can in no way see combining tragically."

"It's not all that bad, my lady," Solas said. "We've used my tuning of the Inquisitor's Mark to move to rift locations a number of time, all without ill effect."

"No ill effect save that I still feel the Fade crawling all over me, betimes, when we are through."

He smiled, revealed uncomfortably long canine teeth. "The Fade crawls over us all the time, Madame de Fer... those like us most of all. No matter. The technology, based on a technique and craft I learned from a slumberer in a forgotten age, is solid and more or less without danger."

Varric tugged his chest hair. "It's the more or less that worries me."

"You needn't be concerned, Master Tethras. This craft will allow me to make little 'marks,' if you will on the crystals. It's an extension of the rift magic that Your Trainer, Merrill and I already practice."

He formed an illusion, before them. It presented a small rift, raging within a multi-faceted gem. "The crystals will focus the energy of the rifts and allow people and materials to move through the Fade, with all the haste of a dream, so that our forces can appear at will where the League least expects them and we need them most."

"It is," Leliana said, "a superbly mad plan." It was difficult to say if the noise she made was actually 'purring,' but no one present would have denied that it was close enough to fool all but the most discerning cat.

Cassandra rapped the table. "As possibly the only Seeker left in Thedas, for whatever that matters anymore, I feel like I should ask if we are being entirely prudent in opening active rifts all over the Free Marches? I mean, I assume that these active rifts come with all the dangers inherent to them..."

Dorian, roused from near somnolence in his seat by the Iron Bull, clapped. "That would be delicious, no? Tiny little demons, running around all over Wildervale. Forget sylvans; they could possess twigs and flowers!"

Merrill, for one, seemed intrigued by the notion. "That sounds like it could be quite adorable, if you think about it. Little wee demon babies, even... you could knit them hats and scarves. Perhaps not the little rage demons--or would they be irritation demons? They might set them fire." She hushed at an affectionate squeeze of Declan's big hand over her small one. "Er, I was just thinking, you know... perhaps they wouldn't be so enraged if you gave them tiny hats."

Dorian, now near shaking with laughter, struggled to remain upright. "Ladies... and gentlemen. The wisdom of the Dalish! Merrill, sweetling, you may have solved the problem of demons all over Thedas. Tiny hats!" Tears streamed down his cheeks. She kicked his ankle, under the table. He laughed harder.

Fiona raised her hand. "Quiet, childen." Somehow the decades of gravity in a Grand Enchanter's voice carried weight, despite the rebellion, the Breach, everything. She turned to Solas. "They raise a good point, if very badly. Do we know that you won't unleash an army of the accursed on the Free Marches?"

He fixed her with a dark, intense stare. "You will have to trust to the strength of my magic, Grand Enchanter, its depth and the subtlety of the architecture of ancient elven-kind. You know well I am the most capable mage for this--far more than you could be."

Something passed between them. Her brilliant, green eyes fell before his. "You are right. As painful as any of us know it is for a mage to admit..." This garnered general laughter, eased the tension. "I say true that you are possessed of... talents... that most of us do not have. If you say that the crystalline rifts will not admit demons, I believe you."

"Which leaves us with one problem yet," Dorian said. "All this exciting talk of rifts and crystals and tiny demons aside... how the hell exactly are we supposed to get the crystals in place? We can't exactly ask Mischa to go running through the Fade all over the Free Marches himself. That just looks... gauche."

Varric spoke up. "That, my friend, is where another one of my old contacts come in. We in the Inquisition have mages, Templars, soldiers and spies, but we lack a dedicated navy. I think, if I can talk fast and promise a lot of shiny toys, that I can get us one."

"Meaning? Unless you've managed to squirrel away a few Qunari dreadnoughts I can't think of anything that might make such an impact."

"Oh, it's better than a few dreadnoughts, Sparkler... " Varric grinned so broadly that it looked lik the top of his head might fall off "Chuckles may have his little pocket rifts and you and Bull might have the Chargers running wild in the back-country, but I'm going to do my damnedest by Andraste's holy, flaming ass to deliver Isabela Naishe and the Raiders of the Waking Sea. We'll have our people and their crystals wherever we want them, with fire and the sword as a bonus."

Leliana hummed a melody she'd written, "Captain Scarlett and the Rushing Waters." Finally, she spoke. "I see ill in the future for Hercinia, if her fleet does not cease to harass the Kirkwall docks and return home. Once that is accomplished, Kirkwall can be reinforced directly by sea from Highever and Amaranthine."

"Indeed," Declan said. "Isabela has a great way of disrupting matters, even when she is not directly involved. She brought matters to a head in Kirkwall once before, in the Arishok affair... let's hope she can manage it this time without quite as much slaughter."

"I spent a night with your friend, Ravin Brosca and Zevran Arainai, once," Leliana said, "in the Pearl, in Denerim. It was during the Blight." She chuckled deep in her throat. "It was... memorable. There was much disruption and quite nearly as much slaughter."

After the general laughter subsided, Merrill tugged her braid, gasped and said. "Oh! It's a sex thing you're talking about, not fighting. I wondered why you were fighting in the Pearl, since it's one of those places, not a battlefield. I have got to get better at not mixing them up, war and sex."

"They are easily mixed, choupinette," Leliana said, "and often seem the same thing. It is especially murky in the world of assassins, pirates, bards, liars and other roguish types." When she saw even the mighty Declan Hawke blush, beneath his ferocious tattoos, she added, "Although I hear that rangers of the Korcari Wild can be a little bit more circumspect, on occasion."

"Besides, Daisy," Varric said, "when war and sex get mixed up it keeps things interesting. Keeps us all on our toes."

Merrill nodded. "I do miss Isabela, and she did keep things interesting. Between her calling me 'Kitten,' again, and you calling me 'Daisy,' Varric, it'll be a wonder if I don't forget my name is Merrill. I can barely remember to keep my head screwed on some days, anyway."

Mischa Trevelyan raised his hand, eloquently called silence without a word. "It's settled, then. We'll start tomorrow morning... I'll work on getting our pieces in place and then we can try to pacify the Free Marches and relieve the threat to Kirkwall. Maker help us all."

The room fell silent. It was a great plan that was terrible so, so many ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter probably tells you I've read way too many books by David Eddings and Glen Cook. I also REALLY wanted to figure out a way for the fast travel mechanism to work, so the Fade being like Warrens in Steven Erickson's Malazan books seemed to work.


	3. Quiet Nighttime Conversations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An eavesdropper overhears pertinent conversations all around Skyhold, and takes part in one of her own.

Sera kicked around outside the tower's window a while, after listening to a War Council to which she hadn't been invited and, to be honest, wouldn't have attended in the first place before scampering, across Skyhold's rooftops, to take the land's lay. She crouched, mouse quiet, outside other windows to absorb the kind of council she understood, that which took place between people.

Well, she amended, those in the war room were people--were even the ones she visited now, some of them, but not then, didn't act like people while they did all "blah, blah, march," and "ooh, I'm a big one, crush you." Even folks she considered fair dinkum, like Inky-poo, Doh and Bully, didn't act like folks during those times, just empty robes and great, big, clanking suits of armor.

She settled beside the low window of a cozy cottage near Skyhold's stable, in sweet smelling hyacinth and a fresh rosemary patch that tickled her nose, made her want to sneeze. It was the kind of home she imagined that she might have had, in different circumstances, had she not ended up a scummy little Alienage rat in Denerim's orphanage then, after the Blight and so, so many demons, its unforgiving street and among friends. Yuck... probably be a cheese farmer's wife, now, until she went mad and stabbed him. Probably. It was better the way things had actually been; it almost always was.

She felt like much of the worry had started with this one, him and King Chest-hair, so it seemed only right to sight what was happening in his abode. Plus, his silly little wife wasn't awful looking, for an elf, and a peek wouldn't hurt anyone.

They spoke mostly in Dalish, like they always did when alone together, so Sera didn't get a great sense of their conversation. Others helped her piece it together later on, the parts of it that seemed important for her to know for her role in things, at least. Not exactly what they said, but enough to keep in the loop. She filled in the rest with her imagination. It was active enough for three people, Bull said, and more twisted than the Ariqun's horns. She didn't know what that meant, exactly, but he smiled when he said it and didn't seem to be teasing her in a mean way. Bull never was. Gentle giant, that one... good people all over.

Merrill toyed with her potage of cress, almonds and milk of almonds. She swished the thin, pale liquid one way, sloshed it another, stirred in a few precious grains of pepper from Rivain and then decided against taking a bite.

The roasted dove, from the brace Declan had brought in, then... that might taste better. She tore a wing from the little bird--felt a moment's guilt at the tearing flesh and popping bone before reminding herself that even foolish elven mages, like all the forest's creatures, had to eat.

It had been sauced to near perfection with a reduction of jellied plums and strong, full-bodied West Hill Brandy. Though Skyhold maintained a full kitchen staff, would have been apt to starve without one, she or Declan usually managed the cooking duties for their tiny household. Tonight's soup had been one of her efforts, and a fair one. He usually hunted to supplement their diet with meat for them and Ganon, the bull-necked Mabari that he'd brought from Lothering that must have been closing in on fifteen years of age. He snored now, by Declan's feet, a heap of grey-streaked russet fur and the scars of a thousand battles.

She felt Declan's bright eyes boring into her, though she studied the soup bowl with utmost concentration. "Are you all right, Merrill?"

She shrugged. "As well as I can be, my heart." She laid the spoon down. "We've come so far, both of us... from the Brecilian Forest and Korcari Wild to Kirkwall, and now to Skyhold. It seems like we leave a trail of ruined homes behind us. I wonder if something will bring the mountain down, next?"

"I wouldn't tempt fate, given everything we've both seen in our lives. The Maker seems to take a perverse pleasure in bringing disaster upon us in spite of all likelihood, so I wouldn't be too surprised to find that the mountain itself is some kind of sleeping giant that'll awaken and shake us off, honestly."

She laughed, softly. "I'll be all right, as long as we fall together. I know you'll catch me. You've been catching me since the first trip we took together up Sundermount."

"It wasn't a big thing," he said. "You just stumbled over a loose pebble."

"Less than a handsbreadth from a sheer drop onto jagged rocks. My clan might have breathed a sigh of relief, but I'd not have been doing much sighing at all."

He set aside the dove's thigh he'd been tearing at. "Your clan are a passel of fools. They discarded one of the greatest treasures in Thedas with no regard."

"The Eluvian? I know--"

He laughed. It was deep, rich and rolling. "Maker be good, Merrill, I'm not talking about the Eluvian. You're the treasure; you."

She blushed a deep scarlet, beneath her vallaslin, to the roots of her dark hair. "Oh. I'm sorry. I miss things like that, sometimes."

"Would you be my Merrill if you didn't?'

She pondered the question for a moment. "I would definitely still have green eyes and pointed ears. And probably a propensity to stumble."

He nodded with mock gravity. "It's good that there are some constants in this world, even in a time of turmoil."

"I wonder if we're stumbling now," she said. "I can't help but feel like I need to pinwheel my arms for balance."

"What do you mean?"

"Sebastian is a good man, I know he was at least, but he can be so... harsh. He was unyielding, as much as Fenris or Anders in his own way. I fear that no matter how badly Mischa and Josephine want for this to be as bloodless as it can be that we're going to see the Free Marches become a giant butcher block... and where would the Champion of Kirkwall be but in the middle of it all?"

He tried for levity. "What sort of Champion would be be if he shirked this duty?"

It seemed to fall flat after hanging heavy in the air a moment. "One alive, with his wife. Maybe they'd raise a son or two, a little daughter. My love, I fear that this will be a journey that leads to your death."

"If one man dies and it saves Kirkwall, Merrill, isn't it worth it?"

"To me? No, I cannot say it is. You are worth more than gold, my love, a city... a city full of gold, for all I care. Kirkwall can burn to the ground before I would let you die for it." She snorted. "It has twice already, just that we know of."

He pushed his chair back, rose to clear the table. "You think they would consider rebuilding out of something not quite so flammable, next time."

She followed him. "You know the Kirkwall motto; if at first you don't succeed, slit your wrists and shout for a demon."

"We are the refugees of a truly strange town."

"I can't regret it, though. It's where I met you. Well, not 'met,' per se... that was on the Sundermount. But we got to know each other in Kirkwall, when you and Varric made sure I didn't starve or get myself murdered or eaten or anything."

He wrapped his huge, longbow-conditioned arms around her tiny frame. "I'm going to have to go, you know."

She sank into the depths of his chest, felt his auburn beard trail feathery across her forehead. "I do. That's why I've gathered a few things. I'm going with you, after all."

He pressed her to arm's length. "Merrill..."

She put her finger to his lips. "Don't be silly, love. You and I have fought far worse things than a group of angry men side by side--we killed a high dragon, once, where the Inquisitor mostly just drives them off, and the Warden couldn't manage even that against The Woman of Many Years. The skills I learned as a First do wonderfully for keeping folks still so that you can shoot them, just as they would for a Dalish clan's archers." She thought a moment. "I shall miss Aveline running around in front of us, bashing things with her shield. Perhaps we can meet up with her? Reunions are lovely."

"I wouldn't expect her to be anything but a pain in the arse to Sebastian's invasion force," Declan said. "She's been the Viscountess of Kirkwall in all but name since we left, a far better one than the city deserves."

"At least Varric will be with us. He and Bianca couldn't stand letting this happen to their home without doing something."

"The crossbow or the woman?"

"Er..." Merrill said, "Both? Perhaps? I don't know."

He kissed her head, then nose, then lips. "Regardless we'll be with them. Wherever you go, in this life or the next, I will be there. I love you, forever."

"Where you go, my heart, so shall I, in this life or the next." She stood on tip-toe to kiss him, let it open and blossom into something more. He held her tight. They clung together.

Sera crept away, headed to her next observation post. All that mush would take hours to scrub out of her brain. Why did happy sexy times make people go so barmy? She couldn't fathom it. Far too easy to slip, that way, make a mistake and end up dead. Easier among friends, she reflected. Things didn't get so complicated. And all that elfiness beside... Baldy-pants would have had an orgasm right there just listening to it.

Not that her next stop would be much less slurry-mushy, she figured, but the elfiness would have to be toned down considerably. Unless either Scribbles or Blackie had gone completely round the bend, that was. She set her hands on the rough, cool stone--memory in that stone, something touched her, she pushed it away and scolded it for coming close--and started up towards the high balcony outside where Josie slept. It was a nice, long climb. Her muscles would burn, in the thighs and shoulders and forearms, by the time she was done. Yeah, that was it... a nice, long climb in the cool night air. That was the thing for washing elfy love mush out your brain.

Blackwall sat on the edge of the bed and watched Josephine pull the brush through her long, dark curls. She took long, languid strokes with the same efficiency with which she directed the affairs of Thedas or cowed its nobles with a voice wielded like a cracked whip. All of it stood as a testament to artful, effortless femininity. It was no wonder he felt in awe of her, fell deeper into fascination with her each day. The truly bizarre thing, the one that made him wonder if he was living still had gone to the Maker--or, if the illusion broke, a particularly cruel hell--was that she seemed to return his affection.

Amazement and a surge nigh unto love built in him as he watched her delicate fingers pick through knots, disentangle snares and smooth sable tresses. Her pulse beat quickly in her throat, beneath tawny skin so perfect that it may as well have been translucent. This was the sort of woman bards sang about, he reflected, that a perfect chevalier could dedicate his life to.

And, he would admit if forced, the saffron nightgown embroidered with pink, dancing nugs was pretty cute, too. He worked to stifle a chuckle, failed. She shot a glance at him, eyebrow raised. "You have been staring at me for a quarter of an hour, and now you laugh at me... Warden Blackwall, I begin to wonder if you truly are a gentleman."

"I never claimed to be, Josie, just a fool for you. I love watching how skilled you are at taming that mass of hair."

She giggled. "No mean feat, on a humid day. If you're saying obliquely that you would like my help in brushing and braiding your beard..."

"Maker forbid. I've seen some of those dignitaries who visited from Orzammar when King Bhelen decided that he needed to be allied with the Inquisition. Nothing looks so foolish as a braided beard."

"Really?" Her inky eyes sparkled. "I thought that Deshyr Ronus Dace looked quite dashing, with his braided mustaches."

"Ah," Blackwall said. "That's where you're making your mistake! You wanted to braid my beard, but you're talking about braided mustaches. They're totally different animals."

"As different as a falcon and a man, or more similar, like a gurn and bronto?"

He shook his head slowly, sadly. "More different, even than a man and a hurlock. One is but a twisted, Blighted imitation of the other." He made a sign of protection with his forked fingers, one she recognized as native to his home city of Markham. "Maker level a curse on those who would believe their foolish, drooping soup strainers to be as glorious as a thick, true beard... and an even fouler curse on those who would braid a man's beard!"

She laughed until her sides ached. "Stop, stop, messere... I cry mercy, misericordia! I swear upon my life and the honor of the Montilyets that I will never threaten to braid your beard again."

"Well and good. You couldn't handle it woman. This is a beard of kings."

Josephine chuckled again, fought to bring herself under control, and sighed. She set her brush down and moved to sit beside him. "I shall miss these nights, while I am in Antiva City and Seleny."

He grunted, laid his big hand over hers. "Not nearly as much as I will on the road between Ostwick and Kirkwall with a bunch of half-grown, wild eyed chevaliers errant from Val Chevin and Jader."

"At least," she said, "you are all there for more or less the same purpose. I do not know if my people can even conceive of acting in concert, but I must work to force them. I am going to have to speak to the giudici of Corte d'Onoranza and plead our cause. You have nought to do but wrangle beardless youths, I must grapple with the greatest scions of Antivan society. It is an unnerving prospect."

"Unnerving?" He rubbed the ball of his thumb on the back of her hand; she shivered. "Isn't your grandmother among the giudici?"

"Si, along with my great-aunt and Yvette's grandfather-in-law. You can see, perhaps, why I am terrified."

He considered it a moment. "Point well taken. At least if the chevaliers become restless I can knock their heads together to beat some sense into them. I can't imagine that being a good course of action with your giudici."

She giggled. "No, but it would be a glorious thing to try." She punched her thigh. "If they got out of line? Clonk! I would then, of course, be immediately murdered by the first passing Crow. La Corte has standing contracts with them for the 'sanitation' of anyone who steps too far outside the bounds of Il Affari, which I can imagine that whopping the heads of our noblest elders would constitute. "

"And then the judge who gave the word would be struck down within hours, since I'm certain your parents have a standing contract against anyone who'd threaten the lives or well-being of their children." He hid a smile in the depths of his tangled beard. "They seem like the sort of loving parents who would consider that rather important."  
"You scoff," she said, "but where I am from it is a far more practical and precious Satinalia gift than a string of pearls could ever be." She paused. "Satinalia... we're going to miss spending that together, aren't we? Likely First-Day as well. Mannaggia!" She turned huge, imploring dark eyes on him. "Why couldn't Mischa send you to Antiva City with me? Wouldn't I have been more impressive with a bodyguard?"

"I asked the same thing, but Cullen explained why he wanted me on the Old Ostwick Road, by the Wounded Coast. I'm a Champion of the Grand Melee and those chevalier pups will respect me where they might not another man."

"Even Charcer de Lion? He is Le Champion de la Lance et Joute; surely they would pay him heed and free you to travel with me."

Blackwall wobbled his head to-and-fro. "Charcer is to be engaged in the work of bringing these young lions to fight with us, evangelizing the war effort all over Orlais, so to speak. And he can be a trifle flighty, besides... Cullen said he wanted a man sober enough to reign the lads in, if they grew overexcited, not one who would join in their enthusiastic making of mistakes."

She raised a hex sign, summoning Yavana, with two fingers. "Un vaiolo su di liu! He would have been fine, and you could have been with me."

"I will try to get away to visit you, when he brings some recruits, if this mess has not ended by Wintersend. We can use one of Solas' crystals to meet."

She raised and eyebrow. "What is so important about Wintersend?"

He blushed, mumbled into his beard. "Er... it's just that it would be a long time to go without hearing your voice. I would be night unto a madman by then."

She thought about it a second, drew her conclusions, and snuggled close to him. Her head fit well on his shoulder. "It would be a long time. I feel that these are to be a lonely few weeks." She sighed. "Things have been going so well--against all odds. I cannot bear for them to fall apart over this. What can we do?"

He wrapped his arms around her, hugged her tight. Her heart sped up against him. "We must make the best of the hours we have before then."

He felt, pressed against the flesh of his broad chest, a smile he could not see. "With words so honeyed and well chosen you could be the diplomat, not me." He wound his hands into the shimmering, dark cloak of her hair, she murmured urgent nothings. They sank to the coverlets.

Sera, still on the balcony ledge to this last, swung her legs over the side and started down. There were times in this life, she believed, when you just had to nope out, no matter how curious you might be about how far that rich, smooth caramel skin stretched or if a man could truly be furrier than a Great Bear of the Dales. Princess Prissypants was all right--Sera could have stood her even if she hadn't been smoky hot with a voice to die for--and Blackie was a good egg. Not friends, maybe, since she was too rich and he too bloody honorable, but as close as could be without being.

Where to go now? Not Inky. He and Cass deserved their privacy--he had none from waking to sleep, and even Sera could not bear to intrude on him in the only quiet moments of his day. Commander Jackboot worried her since going off Templar juice. She'd visited on occasion to check up, only to find find him sweating, twitching, struggling to sleep peacefully, against the demons haunting his own, personal corner of the Fade. Just like any slushy lush she'd found in an Alienage gutter, just noble and proud because he was fighting off real spirits, not the distilled kind.

Once Sister Creepy was with him, his head cradled closely in her lap. It shone with perspiration. She dabbed it, gently, with a soft rag and sang "Balou, Balou, My Wee Darling," a lullaby that any son or daughter of Ferelden would have recognized. Sera knew she did, wondered if it sounded any different in the Alienage than on the cool, wild hills outside Honnleath.

Leliana looked up. Sparkling green eyes met burning blue, locked an instant. Sera smiled, offered a little salute, and stuck out her tongue. Leliana smiled and nodded. Sera had left, then, confident Jackie-boots was in good hands--quite bloody good, indeed, if half of what she'd heard tell was true.

So no, not a look-see on Cullen, tonight. She scampered across slate roofs, raised barely a patter, until she found the Herald's Rest's second story balcony. She slipped into home, or home-away-from home, at least, to find Bull and Dori hunched over a chessboard.

Dorian smiled and waggled his fingers. "Salve, my mad little wench." Bull grunted. "Our enormous friend would greet you, too, but I seem to have him backed up flush against a wall--quite a reversal of our usual roles, but one I find delicious."

Bull moved his chevalier around Dorian's mage, in range of his king. The delicacy with which his enormous fingers manipulated the tiny, carved pieces seemed queerly incongruous, but those were good words to describe the Iron Bull. "What you find delicious," he said, "is the sound of your own voice."

Dorian clutched at his heart. "You wound me!"

"Not you, your king, if I can manage it. You're in check." He glanced over his shoulder. "Hey, Sera."

"Hey." She flopped on the ragged couch they all preferred to more luxurious accomodations and blew a raspberry. "Whuzzat you're doing? Aren't we going to get enough real war, soon, without playing pretend with tiny little wooden men?"

"Not wooden, dear," Dorian said. "These are carved from the tusks of an albino snoufleur. Most rare and precious."

She snorted. "Probably even more to him, yeah?"

"That is why we celebrate that we are not snoufleur." He examined the board. "Damn it all I'm in a bind, aren't I?"

Bull grunted. "You got distracted by busy-body, over there. Never take your eyes off the prize, my man."

Dorian fiddled with the pieces, a moment, then moved to snap up the chevalier with his Divine. She was, in the next movement, taken out of the game by Bull's tower. "Not just check, my friend, but check and mate."

He studied matters for a moment that seemed to stretch into eternity. "Damn it all I think you're right. Alas!" He tipped his king. "I must bow my head to the vast military might of the Qunari."

"Right bloody shame," Sera said, "that you can't really fight that way... just putting your people in the way of the other bloke's people, and nobody gets squashed, just one king say, 'oy, mate, it's been one hell of a fight... let me just lay down and take a nap, now.'"

"That's more or less what Trevelyan is trying," Bull said. "Maybe no naps. Which is sad; I like naps."

Dorian laughed. "In the middle of a battle?"

Bull shrugged. "Getting a little refresher helps me to fight extra hard for the rest of the day."

"It's not going to work, though. The plan, I mean. Not napping; that always does. Folks are going to fight and squash each other for stupid nobles, again, just like always."

"Yeah," Bull said. "Sorry to say, kid, but even a plan like this, seems watertight as a dreadnought's belly, isn't going to go totally smooth. There's going to be a lot of heads busted on the Wounded Highway, when those chevaliers cut loose, and we're going to make as big a mess as we can in Wildervale."

"If it makes you feel any better," Dorian said, "the people who are going to get squashed, most of them, are already squashing people who can't fight back at all. Thievery and chavauchee are rampant, in the outlying villages around Kirkwall. The League soldiers take without asking and come back to burn what they couldn't carry when they get bored."

"Ah, so arseholes, then."

"More or less."

"That's good. Straightens my back a sight." Sera offered one of her lopsided grins. "Arseholes and arrows go lovely bubbly together, like peas and carrots and whiskey."

"I've never had the pleasure," Dorian said, "but I must concur in principle. So... you are headed into this adventure with us? I thought you hated the woods as much as I do."

"I do, yeah, but Bully's fun to fight with. He won't be all, 'oy, hey, army shite,' like some of the others might. We can make a mess and have fun, like friends." She tugged a strand of her dishwater hair. "What's bringing a pampered, pretty little Vint out into the scrub?"

"Where the Iron Bull goes," he said, "does Dorian Pavus follow." He laughed. "I can't keep up with the big fool and keep him from doing something stupid if I'm safe behind walls, can I?"

Bull growled, deep in his chest. "Yeah, I love you too, basra Tevene."

"Huzzah, then... we're gonna fuck shit up and have a nice time." She kicked her feet. "Bit like a vacation, maybe."

"You two," Dorian said, "are the maddest, wildest pair I know... the only two I can imagine who'd call guerrilla action behind the lines of a war a 'vacation.' Alas, I can't imagine my own madness without yours, so..."

Bull headed to the couch, flopped beside Sera and ruffled her hair. "You're stuck with us, eh, Vint?"

"Damn right, oxman." He joined the pair, draped Bull's arm over his shoulder, and lounged against the huge Qunari's side. "At least there's no better trio than us for raising sheer havoc."

"What about a combination of Warden Brosca, Declan Hawke and Mischa Trevelyan?"

"I said havoc, Bull, not wild-eyed, world ending destruction. There's a difference." He yawned. "I suppose we should try and get some sleep in our bed one last night before we embark."

Bull nodded toward Sera, who had already curled up, put her feet in his lap and started to softly snore. "I think she had the same idea... just here instead of down the hall."

"I take it you're not disturbing our wee, mad friend?"

"Not for the world."

"All right, all right." Dorian let his eyes slip shut. "But we are not doing this each night, in the field. I would never get my beauty rest."

"Right, right," Bull said, his own gravelly baritoned blurred by sleepiness. In only moments, all three had drifted into a content dreamland.


	4. La Grande Y Felicisima Armada

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric, Mischa and Cassandra seek naval aid for an old friend in Rivain.

Varric, Mischa Trevelyan and Cassandra ambled down a street on the Llomerryn docks, struggling to look as inconspicuous as possible. There was no chance for a bookish Junior Enchanter from the Ostwick Circle, Varric knew, and the tall, rigid Seeker had already sweat a bucket into her armor. Her forehead gleamed, brighter than the silverite, but Varric knew she would never consent to wear something more sensible like the light tunics favored by the Rivaini or even one of the tough, leather harnesses he favored for himself.

Not that he, at least ostensibly a scion of the Surface Merchant's Guild, stood out any less in the sea of dust, hot air and dusky faces. It wasn't the kind of thing a savvy man could go around forgetting, he reminded himself, lest an anecdote that could have easily been "funny" turn on a copper bit to "fatal."

The docks, called Raiders' Alley by most and their proper name of Kaien Handia 'Merkatu by only the city fathers, Chantry Mothers and their Templars, bustled with activity. A fishmonger to their left hawked a huge, meaty bonito, swung it around his head by the tail like a morning star. It would, he promised, make a Feast Day fish fit for the Maker. A few stalls down to the right a slender, sallow ragman promised glittering trinkets from a Primeval Thaig, lost in the First Blight. Varric stifled a laugh; he was pretty that his companions, Bianca and Corypheus were the only ones who had seen the inside of a Primeval Thaig and survived, and none seemed particularly like the type to pawn any treasures from them on these piers, slippery with the slimy fish guts they so reeked of.

Lush, dark-skinned prostitutes beckoned from the upper balconies of houses that ran up against one another and leaned out over the street. They were wrapped in broad ribbons of bright, diaphanous silk that covered almost everything but left nothing to the imagination. A heavy miasma of embrium and cinnamon, cardamon, Seheronese kari leaves and cloves wafted over the street level's marine stink. To three nobles from the cool south it created difficulty in keeping down their late breakfast of baby octopus roasted over fiery peppers and garlic in black, wild rice grown in the muddy mangrove swamps on Afsaana's coast. To sailors or raiders back from a long voyage at sea with nothing more amusing to look at than each other, though, it was home. 

He returned from woolgathering. It was, he reminded himself, a more foolish pastime here than even in Kirkwall. They had arrived, anyway, and old friend that Varric loved with all his heart or not this wasn't the kind of woman you took for granted or treated with lightly. He sucked in a deep breath, puffed out his chest and mounted the stairs to the Templar's Grave.

It was a nicely appointed tavern, in spite of its grim name and the even grimmer sign of a disembodied Templar lieutenant's helmet that Varric prayed did not contain the head of its owner. The heavy door was carved from Antivan red cedar and bore polished brass knockers in the shape of spirits who, if he had been pressed to surmise from their spectacular endowment, were dedicated to the pursuit of fertility. A bull-necked man with scarred, ebony skin and a broad, bare chest lounged by the door. He idly stropped an Antivan chopper, probably far less sleepy than he appeared, and did not even stir until Varric, the Inquisitor and Cassandra were less than a yard from him. "So..." he said. "A kalnas deshyr, lanky git of a mage and big, horse-faced Chantry bitch dumb enough to show her face in Rivain after what happened in Dairsmuid..." He yawned. "Could be an interesting day. Could be we get a new sign."

Cassandra's hand fell to her sword-belt. "Could be you let us pass and I don't feed you four feet of steel." Energy crackled on the air.

He flicked dark eyes up and down her, shrugged, and went back to sharpening the heavy dagger in his hand. Bravado was one thing, yeah, but no point in dying, if it was you who were outnumbered and would be doing it. His mates would hear the commotion at the door, and so would the Admiral. They'd be here in a moment, then see who'd be feeding who what. "Er..." Mischa said. "Excuse me, serah, but are we boring you?"

He sighed. Mages. Always bloody wanted to talk. "Day was boring me to begin with. This promises to get interesting."

"It doesn't have to, you know... you could just let us inside."

"I could, but I don't want to." He grinned. "Feel a little spiteful."

An expression of honest confusion settled in his amber eyes. "Whatever for?"

Cassandra growled. "Because he is scum, darling, and won't retire from our path unless you allow me to retire him."

"Surely it's not all that bad, my love," Mischa said. "We're all adults here, reasonable..."

"Nah, that wild-cat in armor of yours has the long and short of it. I'm a Raider, yeah? We're supposed to be spiteful, and don't get particularly offended at getting called scum."

Varric pushed forward, afraid that their brilliant strategy for Kirkwall could easily end with Cassandra gutting this man and going to war with the entire Raiders of the Waking Sea. "Serah, how about instead of letting this little pissing match progress any further you take us where we want to go, to see your leader? She's a companion from back in my more, how do you say, roguish days and would be severely unhappy to find friends old and new brawling on her doorstep."

The dark skin between his eyes wrinkled. "You're telling me that you're on good terms with Scarlet Isabela?"

He nodded and spread his hands. "Good terms? Hell, I'm the one who gave her the nickname. It was Scarlet Belladonna, though, and she was a character in one of my books. A villain because she wouldn't have it any other way. I'm pleased as eel pie that she's using the nickname, though."

"And now you're palling aroung with a Chantry she-wolf and her soft little Circle trained mouse." He whistled. "A long road makes strange companions."

"That it does. I thought I'd reached the living end when I was trapped in a lost Thaig with the future Champion of Kirkwall, a half-mad, possessed Grey Warden and the Champion's sunny little sister. Now..." He offered what he hoped was the Tethras arsenal's most charming grin. "How about you let us in to see the Admiral?"

He shrugged. "Suit yourself. Leave your weapons at the door--his staff and her sword, I see you were bright enough not to bring anything--and we'll see what we can see. Do anything foolish and half the crossbow bolts in Llomerryn will pierce you, though, I can promise."

"We are usually pretty foolish," Varric said, "but not in someone else's house." He closed his eyes. "'More sacred than any spirit is a woman's home, more precious to her than rubies is the place she lays her head.'"

He grunted his approval at the kalnas' use of a Rivaini proverb. Disarming them took a moment, for two of the doorman's burly compatriots who had remained unseen during their conversation, and even Cassandra let her sword go with no more than a stern warning that should she not find it intact heaven's wrath would rain down on them and all their families. Finally, he turned the male doorknob--gripping it in a fashion that could have seemed quite lewd--and offered them admittance.

Templar's Grave gaped, dark and foreboding, deeper and more luxurious than its humble exterior suggested. Long, red cedar tables groaned under the weight of fruits, flatbread, fish and rich, sweet Rivaini wine. Booths hugged the walls. Sharp, acrid smoke wafted from delicatedly blown glass pipes ensconced within them. Even Varric, an experienced devotee of taverns who had even held his business offices in one for many years, felt his head begin to swim. Mischa and Cass, used to little more exciting entertainment than the library and training ground, must have been halfway to seeing a high dragon in knee socks.

It wouldn't have been any more stunning than the dance, center floor. Two Rivaini spirit dancers, a man and woman, twirled together. Bright tattoos and their dark, gleaming skin swirled together, in the smoky air. Light caught on gold ornamentation hung from ears, nostrils, nipples and navels and flitted away, graceful as the dancers themselves. It was, Varric presumed, a fertility dance--those were popular in humid, non-Andrastian Rivain--and would be most blessed for everyone watching if both participants finished the skilled act of love in which they engaged. It would be a particular blessing for Varric, he thought, when Cassandra figured out that this wasn't just a brilliant simulation of coitus. Her face already burned darker than it had in the oppressive sun, outside; the knowledge might just make her explode.

In the center of it all, on a gilt beech throne on a raised dais, Admiral Isabela Naishe oversaw her small, chaotic kingdom. She looked much the same as always, a broad expanse of tawny hide showing at her collar and below her skirts and limbs more generously curved than Bianca's, but had considerably upgraded her wardrobe. A short, blue jacket from the Tevinter Imperial Navy, cut to display all the Admiral's considerable assets had replaced her simple, white Rivaini sailing tunic. The legendary bicorn, which conferred leadership and all its power on her, perched atop a racous spill of chestnut curls.

Bright phoenix feathers, dyed vermillion, saffron and ultramarine, erupted from each curve and corner. One particularly garish, parti-color example drooped over Isabela's eye. It did not prevent Varric from noticing, however, that a scar and gilt, bolted patch--like the mask of an Orlesian noblewoman--lay below. He grimaced. Political ambition, apparently, carried certain risks whether you were in Orzammar or on the Waking Sea.

If he'd worried about her forgetting old friends since they'd last met outside Fenris' abandoned estate, however, it proved groundless. She hurled herself at him, squealing, and flung her arms around the dwarf's broad shoulders. "Varric! Varric Tethras!" She pressed kisses on his cheeks, forehead, nose and lips. "What the hell has brought you here to see me?"

He squeezed her tight around the waist, lifted her into a bear hug and, when he put her down, laid a slap on her ass for good measure. "Just offering the pleasure of my company, Rivaini... I imagine it's been a long time since you saw some proper chest hair and figured, well, I was in the neighborhood..." Mischa chuckled at their display. Cassandra, mortally offended already at the spirit dancers, could only offer a disgusted growl. The Queen of the Waking Sea tossed her a dark, glittering wink.

Isabela curled her fingers through the hair in question. "You just figured you would come to Llomerryn with two entirely tony friends, risking life and limb, just so I could amuse myself with your magnificent mat?"

"It's the kind of guy I am, Rivaini... I do things like this for my friends." He nodded to the entrance, where the raider who had questioned them so sharply earlier stood. "I even braved your absolutely uncouth doorman with no weapon, all so that you would have the chance to luxuriate in the glory of my carpet of virility."

She studied the guard. He seemed half again smaller, in here, before his Admiral's gaze. She glared at him a moment, nearly broke the man's will, and then laughed. "Toc? He's nothing to worry about. Likes to snarl and wave those Antivan choppers around but he's not really much of a threat." She shouted the next, loud enough to be overheard. "He likes to be called Toc the Mule, because he kicks like one, but I usually call him Toc the Jackass for his braying."

General laughter filled the Templar's Grave. Toc bowed, blushed, and returned to his post by the door. Cassandra's brow furrowed. "How do you maintain control over your men if you tease and insult them so? Shouldn't a leader inspire?"

Isabela's dark, melting eyes grew wide. She studied the other woman carefully, for a moment, before answering. "Maker's breath," she said. "It's like Aveline 'Big Girl' Hendyr had an even stuffier sister we never knew about... and I've discovered her! I feel like Koslun must have upon divining the Qun."

Cassandra glowered. Varric stepped between them. "Cass can be a little rigid, when you first meet her, but..." Varric poked the Admiral's ribs, drawing a giggle. "You've never been overly opposed to a little rigidity, before, Rivaini."

She laughed. Her voice held a golden bell's deep, mellow tone. "All too true, Varric. You know me well." She turned a more serious expression on Cassandra. "In answer to your question, Seeker, I don't rule my men with terror as your like do the Chantry. A crew of pirates is a voluntary organization; we come and go at will with no ill feelings. A hated captain does not remain a captain long, even if her crew doesn't feed her to the sharks. If Toc were to strike out on his own, one day, I would give him a vessel--something small, a sloop or cutter--and if I needed him for a large raid he would come, no questions asked. Teasing, cajoling and negotiation work far, far better in my world than ultimatums or harassment."

"We do not rule by such means," Cassandra said. Something quivered at the back of her throat, though. Varric was not sure but could have guessed Therinfal Redoubt, Caer Oswin and the Order of Fiery Promise lay behind it.

"You don't?" Isabela's tone grew sharper than Bloodletter and the Bodice Ripper, the twin fangs hanging from her ample hips. "Perhaps we could ask dear Toc about that. He would be more than willing to open up, I imagine. You do know why he hates Templars and anything that looks like one, don't you?"

Varric could tell, by the set of her outhrust lower jaw, that Cassandra was not in the mood to relent. She would, wisely or no, follow through. It was her greatest strength in combat, after all. "Perhaps because their Order represents the rule of law and a heathenish brute who acts as a coastal raider is opposed to that on principle?"

Here, as she had on more than one occasion that called upon Varric's skills at extraction, she blundered into a trap. Isabela pounced. "As a Seeker of Truth, I'm sure the truth will interest you, dear. Do you recall the incident at Dairsmuid, three years ago? The annulment of our harmless little Circle?"

Cassandra began to protest, but her voice held little force. It was not a proud moment for any warrior of the Chantry to recall. "The mages were declared..."

"Spare me, love," she said, "spare me. And him. You didn't the Seers of Rivain, including his mother, sister and little niece..." She closed in on Cassandra. Isabela's entire body was a weapon, finely honed by years on heaving decks and equally excited mattresses. Though shorter than Cassandra she was a broad, well built woman and seemed, somehow, to loom over her. It made a species of sense, though. This was Llomerryn, only a few feet from where spirit dancers called on their power, and Isabela was Rivaini to the core. Her fertility talisman, the one Declan had given her after looting it from a Coterie assassin, glittered in her substantial cleavage. "You do know what happened to them, don't you? All those people?"

"They were put to the sword." Cassandra's face, her voice, were tight. Sweat gleamed in fat droplets on her brow.

Isabela, on the other hand, seemed cool, despite the heat and close air. Her voice was even colder. She sidled close to her, all but purred in her ear. "If only they'd been so lucky, Seeker. Both women were raped, Cassandra... Lady Pentaghast, before being slowly hung. The infant's head was crushed by a Templar's sabaton. Now tell me... how would you feel if it were your precious Mortalitasi so abused, princess of Nevarra? Your own sister, brother or lover?"

Cassandra's murky, hazel eyes flicked to Mischa for an instant, but she did not fold under the caresses that fell like hammer blows. Varric had to admire her grit, always had ever since the first day she'd kidnapped him. She answered, voice firm. "My brother was killed, by a blood mage, for one of his demented rituals. I do not hate all mages, though I did for years--I have sworn my fealty to one and share his bed. Our chief magical advisor is an elven apostate of unknown provenance. We have welcomed an outcast Tevinter altus, for the Maker's sake. Do not look at me, see only a Seeker and noblewoman, and tell me what I have or have not suffered, have or have not done."

Almost imperceptibly, Isabela softened. "Did you...?" She let the question hang in the humid midafternoon swirl of sweat and opiate smoke.

"I was only twelve."

"That's not what I asked."

"Yes. When my training was complete I found the maleficar and drove my blade through his skull. Toc?"

Isabela offered the grin Varric loved. "So there's a human underneath all that silverite, after all. And to answer your question, yes. When the Mule kicks, he does it with an asala-kata we captured from a particularly powerful Sten. That's how we got the lovely new sign for this very tavern." She giggled. "It used to be called the Happy Harpy, you know." Her face grew hard, again. "I gutted Knight-Commander Yared, myself. He was the bastard who gave the order. He begged like the sniveling bitch he was the whole way down, even lying there in the mud trying to hold his entrails in. Pathetic man."

"Though you're not seeking my approval," Cassandra said, "I do."

"So you see, then, why thugs in Chantry armor haven't been as welcome here as they might be in other places. If maleficars and all manner of wicked apostitutes had been running wild..." She shrugged. "It would be a different world and we might not even be having this conversation."

"Andraste's numinous nipples," Varric said. "Shit's been bad all over but I had not idea things were at this point in Rivain. How long do you expect...?"

"Until Grand Gana Relevira and her useless husband the Prince Consort step up and flatten Andrastism in Rivain for good, you mean?" The frank manner with which she said it shook them all. "It depends... we have not, as yet, for fear of a united front from the west leading an Exalted March against us. With matters as they stand now... well, if Sebastian 'Choir Boy' Vael makes the Free Marches into his personal praise and worship singing group it is one thing. If Starkhaven's brand of conservatism loses out then it is another matter entirely. Captain Revaud, one of my compatriots and father of our late First Enchanter, says to damn it all and go to business on them now."

"That serious, huh?"

"His brig was once called Enchantress' Delight... the next day he painted her black, flew black sails and renamed her Rivella's Revenge. I hear he's got an apostate aboard, one of the two or three Dairsmuid survivors, who is very nasty with a firestorm."

Mischa grimaced. "Are we to assume that you folks will be too busy for our endeavor, then?"

Isabela flopped on her throne. They noticed that it was more a couch than ruling seat, plush as the form draped across it. "Far from the truth, darling, far from it. I am not with Revaud--he is hot blooded, even for a man of Rivain." She spread a broad smile. "That's why the women rule her, you see. I believe, and Relevira seems to agree with me, that the best way to rid ourselves of the Templar blight would be to keep Starkhaven out of a position of primacy in the Free Marches. Perhaps the end result might even be a friend ruling in Kirkwall. This means offering my services and those of my raiders to those who would make this happen."

She spread her arms, stretched languidly. The dark fabric of her jacket stretched against her chest in ways no man could look away from. "I feel particularly magnanimous today, gentlemen and lady. We do not fight inland, Varric knows from our adventures together that raiders are not built for it, but there is no finer navy afloat save that of the Qunari, hurt me to admit their supremacy though it does. I promise you; Hercinia will draw her ships away from Kirkwall or she will burn like the Dairsmuid Circle Tower."

Varric offered his bobbing, Merchant's Guild bow. "The Inquisition thanks you, Rivaini."

She waved him off. "Save it, Varric. I'm not doing this for the Inquisition--Maker, no. It's for you, Declan and his Kitten, Sunshine... even those wet ends Fenris and Anders, wherever the spirits flung his poor soul... er, souls, I suppose. Most of all, though--and I do not believe this, so don't laugh--I find that I'm doing this for Big Girl. She stayed when we ran, tried to hold together a city falling into rubble around her."

Isabela fixed her dark gaze on Cassandra. "Guard-Captain Aveline Hendyr nee du Lac, the greatest champion since the last to bear her name. If you or I ever become half the woman she is, Seeker, we will be great indeed."

Cassandra's hazel eyes were shining and, to Isabela's surprise, she nodded eagerly. "I cannot concur more, Admiral. The Knight-Captain..." She sighed. "The Knight-Captain is magnificent; truly the embodiment of honor and glory in life."

Isabela cast a glance to the Inquisitor and Varric. He shrugged and waved his hand. "She loves Swords and Shields. What can I say?" 

After the day's grim business, it felt good to him, seeing Isabela dissolve into helpless cackling and roll to the floor. Cassandra's flaming blush didn't hurt, either. Finally, after his friend had recovered and dragged herself onto the cushions, again, she said. "Ah, Seeker... if you love the Knight-Captain then you can't be all bad. I bet you even love marigolds!"

She and Varric launched into another hurricane of laughter, though only Varric knew how true this observation really was. Ah well, time enough to tell her over dinner--surely they could stay that long. It had been far too long since he'd enjoyed a proper dragon prawn tajine, furiously spicy the way they made it here in Llomerryn. Cassandra and Mischa could only look on, and then at each other, in sheer confusion. It must have been something about time shared in Kirkwall... a city like that could drive anyone made.

It had, after all, done likewise to all Thedas.


	5. La Corte D'Onoranza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josephine returns to Antiva for a meeting with her countrymen, to seek aid against the armies of Starkhaven and her allies.

Josephine fidgeted in the corridor outside the Camera del Guidici in La Corte D'Onoranza. She was nervous, had no business being so, and knew it. I am the heir to House Montilyet, she said to herself, the Kestrel Ascendant. I have faced the crowned heads of Thedas, more than once at swordpoint when I had nought but a quill and candle, and survived the attack of a blighted high dragon where others bolder and stronger than me died screaming. If I cannot manage to speak sense with my countrymen, some members of my own family, then I must turn my clipboard in to Lord Trevelyan and announce to my father that I am leaving the family business to Laurien, renouncing the world and becoming a Chantry Sister. Perhaps Leliana could help me with choosing the right holy order? She always made it look like so much fun...

Josie shook the cobwebs loose from her head. Get it together, she said to herself. This is important, as much as keeping the Marquis DuRellion out of our hair in Haven. It could mean the difference between an independent Kirkwall and the entire Free Marches embroiled in an unending war, likely Lord Trevelyan's home of Ostwick on one losing side while the League carried Starkhaven to absolute ascendance on the other. The rest of Thedas would have to suffer against the Venatori and Red Templars without their traditional crossroads and Mischa himself... It was too important for all men that the Inquisition's leader not lay his head down, each night, in terror that his parents and sisters had been slain by their rivals.

A consigliere, notable by his russet robe and long, drooping sleeves, motioned from the chamber's tall, pale ash door. Josie drew a deep breath, steadied herself, and swept into Camera del Giudici with all the authority and grandeur that a scion of Antiva City could muster.

Still she felt dwarfed by the columns, a holdover of this building's original identity as a Tevinter citadel, and the floor's chessboard pattern was dizzying as it had been when she first came to witness these proceedings as a child at her father's knee. The giudici, robed and hooded but never masked--that was a foolish affectation for Orlesians, not the proud children of Queen Asha--reclined stately on their low benches in the stadium rows. Today's Giudice Supremo sat erect behind her lectern, forbidding in layers of sable silk. She was a hawk-nosed woman with tawny skin, hair that fell in long, silver waves around her shoulders and deeply set, smoldering dark eyes. She was also Josie's grandmother. The younger woman felt her stomach fall. Signora Annunziata Alamanzira often had that effect on people.

She did not speak, but let the giudice to her right do the honor of offering greeting. It was Vicenzo Otranto di Seleny, Adorno Ciel Otranto's grandfather. "Saluti, Signora Montilyet. We are pleased to see a daughter of Antiva City return, after so long away from home."

She curtsied. "Saluti, Signore. Would that I came with better tidings, in happier times."

He chuckled. "The sky is torn asunder, piccola. How could tidings be good or times happy?"

"You are correct, avo onorato," she said. "But matters have waxed awful to your south. Surely you are aware of the Exalted League of Marchers, the army from Starkhaven that has formed to exercise its will on Kirkwall?"

"We are," he said, "but do not know how that could affect the people of Antiva." He spread his hands. "It would be foolish for a small, weak country like us to go adventuring against the collected might of Starkhaven, Tantervale and all the others who have joined them, no? It may be that Kirkwall must fend for herself."

"I would agree, Signore, if not for my fear that the destruction of Kirkwall is not all that the Prince of Starkhaven seeks. Though not an ambitious man, I have on good authority, he is a crusading spirit. If he believes that the Free Marches would be better under his control, closer to Andraste and the Maker, he might seek to forge them into a single kingdom under his banner."

Signore Vicenzo stroked his grey beard. A few seats away another giudice, her father's old rival Aurelio Costanza, spoke. "Could it not be that you ask just out of concern for how this war will affect the fortunes of your Inquisition? A united Free Marches might be a benefit to Antiva. We will have but one nation to contend with instead of a multitude."

"One nation," she said, "with the potential to renegotiate all existing contracts, let alone the disruption to trade while the war itself raged." She addressed the chamber as a whole. "Think of the decades of work you all spent setting them in place, how many thousands of Andris will be lost. I see only disaster for Antiva and her merchants."

Josie's great-aunt, Signora Giacinta, laughed. She was a short, round woman with black, dancing eyes. "She knows us well, Aurelio, perhaps you best of all. One Andris that rolls from your fingers provokes weeping that could drown Minrathous. It is truly una tempesta di lacrime!"

He colored. "I am not truly so avaricious, am I Gia?" He clasped his hands, beneath his heart. "It is only that I worry so, so much for the fate of our cities and business ventures if we become embroiled in this foreign affair. What danger could we face?"

Josie would have answered, but Signora Alamanzira finally spoke. "No more than if we ignore the formation of a new kingdom, one already shown to be dedicated to expansion, to our south. Make no mistake, amice... the only difference between the Free Marches and Antiva is that we have a weak man named Andrio that we have sat on a throne and called king. A crusading Prince of Starkhaven that becomes a crusading King of the Marches will hesitate less than a season before turning his eyes north, mark my words." She smiled. The effect was not unlike the many toothed fish once worshipped in Llomerryn and Estwatch, still much favored by the Raiders of the Waking Sea. "Winters are not so harsh up here, as we all know. He may not even have to wait until spring."

They paused. Grave concerns, indeed. Finally, Urtho Morelli di Bastion spoke. He was the eldest man in the court, the most steeped in the traditions of Antiva, a position that bore the honorary title Il Censore. His voice, once sonorous, crackled with age. In the silence, though, it roared. "You make your point well, Signora," he nodded to Josie's grandmother, "and Signorilla. Were I a betting man, I'd place my wager on you colluding against us."

Josie curtsied to him. "You would lose, Primo Capo, but only because it came upon us so fast. The situation is a true crisis."

He raised his hand. It wavered with palsy, but held more power than any here save that of her grandmother. A fitting analogy, perhaps, to the illusions of weakness and strength that defined Antiva. "Pace, piccola. I believe you. It must be put to a vote, as you well know, but I cannot imagine us advising the Grandi Famiglie against providing elements of their soldati for you, and money to purchase condotieri alike. We will discuss matters amongst ourselves tonight, and provide an answer for you tomorrow. For now..." He patted his stomach. "I am an old man. My thoughts turn toward a late lunch that may run into an early supper." He quoted a proverb from Signore Gentio, one of their nation's foremost poets and philosphers. "'Though my house burn around me, my stomach still calls out for food, my parched throat for wine.'"

Signora Alamanzira rapped her knuckles on the lectern to decree an end to the meeting. They broke amid general, nervous laughter. Josie had given them much to consider. Rivain was a good neighbor, to be sure, but neither Tevinter nor Nevarra could be trusted further than a man could carry the Grande Banca di Antiva City on his shoulders. Another unified threat to the south would bind them on three sides, with Par Vollen and the Qunari just a short swim across the Venefication Sea besides.

Josie found her grandmother in the throng. She was a difficult woman to miss, commanding a trail of hangers on and psychophants wherever she went. Her imposing stature made it difficult to remember that she was a small woman, even more so than her daughter and granddaughter, only standing about as tall as Yvette or Sera. Josie knelt, grasped her tiny, wrinkled hand, pressed her forehead against it. "Signora Alamanzira, mio cuore e tuo."

The older woman ruffled Josie's long, soft curls. "Rise, amatissima. Gli Affari d'Onore are over. I'm Nonna, now, remember?"

Josie stood. "Si, Nonna." She rose.

"Now, piccola, give your nonna a hug. It's been far too long since I saw you." They embraced. Josie clung to her grandmother for a long moment, drew in a deep breath of the rosemary, fennel, cinnamon and lavendar that hung around her silvery tresses. "You are well in the south?"

"Si. The Inquisition keeps me busy, and we are doing such good work. The Breach..." She shook her head. "It was terrifying. That we managed to close it, even at such cost... I believe that what we are doing, what Lord Trevelyan is doing, will save Thedas."

She nodded. "Yes, yes... Mischa Trevelyan, a knight-enchanter... Teyrn Hudric and Lady Amelia's son. Lucille's great-nephew, I think?" She chuckled. "If he's half as fierce as his sister Evelyn then I don't think this 'Elder One' has a chance."

Josie giggled. "According to Mischa, not even the Elder One's pet archdemon could hope to be as fierce as Evelyn the Heir. It is, perhaps, why he is so drawn to aggressive women like Lady Pentaghast."

"The heart wants what it wants, piccola." Her expression grew serious. "We were worried when Haven fell, carina. To imagine the power of a being that can collapse a mountain! Your death seemed assured; we had already begun to plan your memorial, and your mother to tear her hair out."

Josie winced. "Mi dispiace, Nonna. I tried to get one of Leliana's ravens through to you as soon as I could, with a message... things were hectic, for a while, before we found Skyhold."

"No doubt. The attack of an archdemon does tend to be... 'hectic,' even if she does not have one of the seven magisters astride her neck. Your Inquisition was almost wiped off Thedas before it had a chance to truly form."

"Si. So many of our people died, good people, and others seem so broken by what happened. Seggrit, the shopkeeper, just wanders aimlessly, wondering why Mischa's party found him and not the man trapped in his store with him. Adan, the herbalist, sits in the garden from morning to night. I have seen him weeping."

Signora Alamanzira nodded. "Events of great stress can bring about a type of madness. I have seen it unman many men otherwise most bold. Your grandfather, for example. He was the sole survivor of a Tal-Vashoth raid on his caravan, in the Hundred Pillars as he traveled to Carastes to take ship for trading in Seheron. It was... savage. Tal-Vashoth are never anything else. He lost a brother and two cousins in the attack, along with trusted soldati and retainers besides. Much of a season he spent without speaking, even to me, and after until his death he would grow quiet, from time to time, and fix his gaze on those who were not there with us."

"I know a little of what you are talking about. I am... not made for violence. I learned that long ago. The fire and death of the Elder One's attack, and the bone freezing chill after, caused me to grow numb." She shuddered. "I sat in the snow, covered in a man's blood and the hunks of his burned flesh, and could do nothing. I might have frozen to death if not for the kindness of a friend of mine. Still I hate snow, the briefest snap of winter on the air. I loved it as a child."

"This friend is the one you have come to spend much time with, the man once known as Thom Ranier?"

Josie twisted one of her curls. "Er... it is Blackwall, a Grey Warden. Our Inquisition would never employ such a man as the war criminal, Thom Ranier."

Signora Alamazira rolled her eyes, so like Josie's own. "Spare me, piccola. The man you call Blackwall is Thom Ranier, formerly the sworn man of Ser Robert Chapuis. Not much sense could be made of the debacle surrounding his arrest and escape in Val Royeaux, late last year--something about a feral elf, bloodthirsty giant and all too handsome, self-satisfied Tevinter altus--but my reliable sources do all agree that it was Ranier and no one else."

"Surely it could have been a mistake, Nonna... perhaps Blackwall was mistaken for this Ranier and taken? They do look quite a lot alike, or so I have heard..."

Her grandmother actually laughed. "You have learned the art of diplomacy well, sweetling. You say neither aye nor nay, then both at once. Do not worry; I do not care that you have taken up with this man, only that he treats you well and makes you happy."

"He... is a kind man, if you can believe it. Noble, gentle. I know what he is said to be responsible for, but he has spared me the details. I prefer it that way." She remembered a dark night in her study, half-mad with worry and grief, when he returned with Sera. The anguish written on his face, in shadow, her own attempts to claw at a semblance of the affection she'd come to feel for him, had to rebuild from its shattered foundation. It had been a cruel stroke at the witch's hour. "What is your evidence that he is not who he says he is?"

"Because I know Gordon Blackwall, or know of him, at least. He came recruiting, to Salle, many years ago. He was a tall, rather slender, hawk-faced man with a thick Nevarran accent--flavor of Cumberland, I think. I would place him at somewhere between my age and your father's. I remember that your mother was quite smitten with him, begged to run off and join the Grey Wardens." She chuckled. "I had nearly to lock her in the cellar, to keep her from it. Your friend, on the other hand, is a broad-shouldered brute of a man in his late thirties or early forties, currently, and I hear tell from your Suora Usignola that his Markham accent is rather marked. The only things he truly has in common with the real Warden Blackwall are that they are both tall and have dark hair."

Josie's eyes narrowed. "You are in contact with Leliana?"

"Of course, my love. I could not let you run off to the southern wilds all by yourself, with no one to watch over you. I am well satisfied that Justinia's Left Hand is a woman who would lay down her life for you, if the need arose, and thus that you are safe." She squeezed Josie's shoulder. "Treasure her as she does you. Friends like that are more precious than rubies."

"Si, Nonna. I am well aware of Leliana's worth. And Blackwall's, too..."

Signora Alamazira's brow furrowed. "It is interesting that you persist in referring to him as such. I understand why your Inquisition maintains the fiction that he is Blackwall--a heroic Warden is much better for the other Wardens, fresh from the disaster at Adamant, than a man who escaped the gallows by a hair--but I know his real name. Do you not use it even with each other?"

"No, because it is not his name anymore."

"Come again?"

"When Blackwall returned he met with Mischa in a private conference--one of the few he has held without even Cassandra Pentaghast to advise him, since she was so livid over it all that she might have attacked the poor man and Lord Trevelyan besides. I was there, though, as Blackwall's counselor and advocate... and to justify my role in his escape, if need be."

"You know what Il Affari says, my darling... a scion of Antiva neither justifies nor explains her rightly taken actions. A fool's offense is his own."

Josie raised a finger. "Save to soothe a friend's ruffled feathers, when they are discomfitted unduly. And he was, believe me." Josie drew a deep sigh and went on. "When it was all over, Mischa's advice to Blackwall was that he let Thom Ranier be as dead as he would have if he'd gone to the executioner's block and that he should take the name Blackwall in honor of him and, in a way, his own self... to mark what he no longer was and what he had become."

"A neat trick," Signora Alamanzira said. "And it makes your Lord Trevelyan look less like an idiot for naming a wanted man as one of his Champions."

Josie giggled. "Yes, it does at that." She sighed. "Matters were progressing rather well with Blackwall, before all this mess with Starkhaven arose... now I won't see him until Wintersend, at the earliest."

Signora Alamanzira gazed sharply at her grand-daughter. "Wintersend, dear?"

"Si." She frowned. "He said that it was important we were together for the holiday. I just hate that we cannot spent time together between now and then. It is as Frate Bibi wrote, 'lost gold may be earned again, but wasted time is consigned to the Abyss.'"

Josie's grandmother smiled enigmatically. "Do not worry so much, dolcezza. Wait until Wintersend--you shall spend the months with me, helping to organize mercenari and monetary support for the efforts in Kirkwall. I have a feeling, deep in my old bones, that for all this time consigned to the Abyss you might be rewarded tenfold. Now..." She clasped her hands. "Let us retire to lunch. I know of a place that makes the most delightful mussels in garlic sauce.

Josie wondered, in her deepest corners, if her inkling of what might be going on could possibly be true... no, it was impossible. It had been ages since she saw Nonna Annunziata smile like that, though, so broad that the top of her head might fall off. The whole effect was rather disturbing. Josie shook her head, to clear it. No matter. There were mussels in garlic sauce to be had. They left together in hot pursuit.


	6. The Wounded Coast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blackwall and his chevaliers-errants clash with soldiers and a spellbind on the Wounded Coast.

A lance of chevaliers errant ripped down the Wounded Coast, along the Kirkwall-Ostwick Road. Their mail glittered in the late evening sun, dawnstone, everite, stormheart, Nevarrite. A few pieces of silverite plate gleamed, here and there, caught darts of the dying light and threw it into onlookers' eyes. Their destriers, a mixture of Orlesian Coursers, Fereldan Forders and even more exotic stock, like Imperial Warmbloods and Rivaini Asaarashi, thundered across the loose sand, kicked up an imposing cloud of dust. Swords, axes and maces flashed. War cries rose to the Maker. For the Empress, for my lady, for Andraste... in the clamor it was hard to tell who called out to what, exactly. It made a picturesque scene, something from a bard's fireside romance, perhaps.

The fleeing cavalrymen from Tantervale, on the other hand, might have describe it all as the depths of a nightmare. They were ordinary soldiers, sergeants-at-arms arrayed in brigandines and kettlehelms, armed with an assortment of javelins, swords and bucklers. Against these young lions of Orlais, the proud children of both Drakon and Valmont dynasties, they stood no chance. So they ran as hard as hoof could carry them, towards the safety of their camp.

Yet a skirmish can turn on a copper penny. Near the camp winds rose, whipping dust toward the young chevaliers with stinging fury. Tiny devils rose in the dust and leaped into the chargers' path, clawing and raking at exposed flanks and bellies with slender claws, nipping and nibbling at the legs and faces of man and horse alike with mouths full of needles. Whether an illusion, constructs or true imps from the Fade enchanted to possess a whirl of sand they tortured, tormented, giggled, shrieked and squealed unholy cacophony. A mage of the entropic school, and seemingly a powerful one suffering from a particularly wicked sense of humor, had arrived. The chevaliers' charge foundered.

The mounted men-at-arms, sensing their only chance at an advantage, wheeled to join the fray. They rode among the heavily armored youngsters, lashing out with sabers, striking mostly armor but scoring a hit against flesh here and there. Blood flew on the blazing, mid-morning air. Speed, the cavalrymen knew, was their only possible advantage so they spun and darted, switched opponents frequently, ignored misses and focused on lighting fast striked at exposed faces, eyes and throats. The chevaliers errant were still deadly, even so pressed, but could not muster a coherent response.

The worm turned, as all soldiers know it must, as quickly as before. One of the Inquisition's Templars, a stocky, middle-aged man named Ser Roger Merk, stepped forward to purge the entropist's magic and, swiftly thereafter, his life by means of a sword thrust. The tiny demons wavered on the scalding air and dissipated. The sand remained sand, stirred only by churning hooves.

Another figure crested the hill after Ser Roger, one well known to the young chevaliers. He was a huge brute, clad in the volcanic aurum plate of a battlemaster. He hacked at the spellbinder's bodyguards with the heavy axe known as Cleave in one hand and a shield in the other, supporting his companion. The weapon was better suited to raw strength than subtlety or skill, but he engaged Bear-Mauls-The-Wolves with greater aplomb than any Champion they'd ever seen.

When the last swordsman standing against him fell, Gordon Blackwall thrust Cleave high into the air. Sunlight gleamed bright along its bloody edge. He raised a druffalo horn to his lips, with the other hand, and blew a long, winding blast. The chevaliers errant raised their voices in a full throated cheer and, their valor renewed, set to the task at hand. Ser Roger focused the lyrium coursing through his veins, concentrated, and called down the Maker's light to blind their enemies. The men-at-arms wailed, threw their arms up across their eyes, and some pitched from the backs of their bucking mounts.

It was all over, at that point, but the weeping. Most of the Tantervale cavalrymen, knowing both defeat and an honorable opponent when they saw them, threw down their weapons, raised their hands and asked for quarter. It was given, along with basic healing, steaming hot barley soup in strong mutton broth and a pewter cup of sour wine. Only a few, possessed by battle fury more potent than a rage demon, fought to the bitter end. They now smoldered in a stack, like cords of wood, the plume of black smoke rising from them a testament to how foolish men can grow under stress. Their wiser companions took their ease in a roomy stockade, considering a fortuitious change of loyalties or, at the very least, an oath of non-interferance along the Kirkwall-Ostwick highway.

So it was when the chevaliers gathered that evening, around a fire, shed of their armor and the day's violence. Two had fallen, ferocious young lions from Arlesan, cousins. They were now properly blessed and burned, with Ser Roger Merk having said the words, and all that remained was toasting their brief lives and bright service. It could be dangerous, the life of a chevalier, but none would eschew it for a dishonorable death in old age with withered limbs, palsied hands and a racking cough.

Talk turned, as it almost always did, to paramours and song. Both were topics of some importance to young men and women around the world but especially the chevaliers errant of Orlais, most of all when they were far from home. Ser Alys Dorin, a lanky lass of less than twenty-five summers, lounged on a hollowed log beside the fire. She let her fingers play across the strings of a lute. Notes hung mellow on the air in a melancholy, minor key.

Ser Maddieu Wells, her longtime companion, sometime lover and always friend, pulled a face. "Maker's breath, Alys... you could depress a hyena with that rot."

She shrugged. "Perhaps I find it pretty."

He tugged a lock of his sandy hair. "Pretty! Listen... you've got the most gorgeous voice in Jader, sweetheart... you could have been a bard if the Academie hadn't come calling to you. Let's hear something to lift our spirits." Four other chevaliers nodded their agreement. Only the Champion, Warden Blackwall, stayed quiet by the fire.

She smiled. It burned brighter than the fire, the stars, the moon all at once. "One of my own compositions, yes?"

He grimaced. "Maker, no."

She shrugged. "Suit yourself, Maddy. I shall just keep playing this run. It's the middle bridge to one of Sister Leliana's songs--very complex--and could take me all night to master." She went back to her work.

He raised his hands. "You win, Al, you win. Let's hear some of your craft as a troubador."

She cleared her throat, played a chord in arpeggio and began to sing:

_"There once was a beauty whose limbs were well turned._   
_His skin was as pale as a fresh winter turnip..."_

Maddy and all their other companions burst into laughter. "Turnip... fresh winter..." He howled. "You've outdone yourself, Al, you really have. As a jogleur there is none greater, save perhaps Sister Nightingale herself, but as far as the craft of a troubador is concerned..." He slapped his knee. "The turnip itself might have done better."

She glowered. "I worked quite hard on that, thank you."

He wiped his eyes. "I'm sorry, Alys, I really am... and you know I love you madly. But... I begged you to sing anything else. I really did."

Color rushed to her cheeks. Its prettiness, on snowy flesh and coppery freckles, contrasted with the pile of everite armor and morning-star beside her. "Perhaps I was proud of my effort, messere," she said coldly. "Perhaps it is a work in progress." They knew that it was not just as surely as Maddy did he would be sleeping alone for a while.

Before the situation could deteriorate any further, the Champion slipped a note to Alys. "Here," he said. "It's something I've been working on. If you'd like something else to sing for these fools." He winked. "Your voice really is something special; I say that having heard Nightingale herself sing."

Maddy brightened. "Our Champion is a troubador? Cendres Sacrees! If you write as well as you fight, messere, then we are in for a treat indeed."

He shrugged. "I dabble. I have a particularly good subject to inspire me."

Alys bowed her head. Startlingly red bangs shaded her eyes. "I shall try to do her justice, then, messere." She frowned at the sheet in front of her. No music was indicated, so a standard setting must needs suffice. She offered a well worn, lilting minor from the far north. It seemed appropriate, to the subject:

_"A flower floats on fetid water,_   
_and gondoliers call harshly across the canal._   
_Pigeons coo in the naked alley, beside broken sons and daughters._   
_A girl calls, 'Cockles, mussels,' and an old woman dodders._   
_Her face is pinched and wan, onlookers stand appalled._   
_A flower floats on fetid water._   
_Seeking for a place to rest, this infernal fever growing hotter,_   
_to taste the sweat on tawny skin would seem a miracle._   
_Pigeons coo in the naked alley, beside broken sons and daughters._   
_Torrents of rain slash, sting and patter_   
_against the roof of a humble tin smith's stall._   
_A flower floats on fetid water._   
_Sing out in the night, raise a hue and clatter,_   
_hands and knees slashed to ribbons by the rocks on which we crawl._   
_Pigeons coo in the naked alley, beside broken sons and daughters._   
_There is no solution, no simple answer to this matter;_   
_a fall from grace must needs be an endless fall._   
_A flower floats on fetid water._   
_Pigeons coo in the naked alley, beside broken sons and daughters."_

Alys stopped. Her slim brows knit together. "Your images are intense and haunting, but so strange. You are a man of great passion, Champion, but I do not think that I am the woman to sing your song."

"I appreciate your attempt, sweet Alys," he said. "Your voice could charm the birds out of the trees."

She smiled. "Merci. And I pray the right voice comes along for this... such a song should not remain unsung." She shuddered. "No matter how infernal the harmony."

Maddy stroked his chin. "It must be the Taint in your blood, Champion, that produced such a strange piece, no?"

"I am tainted in ways you cannot fathom, young chevalier. You know of Le Nuit du Sang, I presume?"

"Oui, messere." Maddy's smooth, handsome face grew dark. "It is a barbarism. Dame Jehan forbade us strictly against such... displays...." He spat. "As if my own honor would not have done the same. I am proud to know that my sweet Empress has outlawed the practice on pain of dishonorable death."

"It was at the instigation of our beloved Grand Duke," Alys said, still tooling on the lute with her long, delicate fingers. "He knows better than any the rot that such a thing can bring, the harm it can inflict on a chevalier's soul."

Blackwall thought it imprudent to mention, given how these fiery young folk were defending their lieges, the even greater harm it was likely to have inflicted on the persons of so many dwellers in Val Royeaux's Alienage, over the years. Or that any effort to stop it would have been instigated, without fail, at the hands of Celene's advisor and lover, Briala. He spoke up. "Just know, my children, that the darkness in which a Warden must walk would make the Bloody Night look like the Western Approach at midday. The Warden's path is a cruel one."

"It is why you are heroes," Alys said, "about whom songs are sung through the ages. To take such a curse upon yourselves..."

"Not heroes, my girl," Blackwall said, "just men who are willing to do what must be done, no matter how much it hurts." He sighed. "I have always done what I must, damn me to hell though it might have."

"Could you be redeemed, messere?"

He shrugged. "That remains to be seen. Wintersend will tell me much."

Alys' smile grew broad, brighter than ever, and turned on Maddy. She had forgone the lute, for the moment, to assume a relaxed posture. He returned it, laid his hand over hers and wrapped it in his fingers. "Wintersend is a fortuitous time, messere. I hope that this Guardian will bring me great blessings."

She giggled. "It might," she said. "Who can know, loupin, until that day breaks on us? Perhaps I will join a troupe of wandering bards, instead."

"Ah, you witch, you tease!" He clasped his heart. "You wound me!" He dove for her. She ducked, smoothly, caught him across her lap and began to tickle beneath his arms. Laughter, wrestling and playful light slapping ensued. They retired toward his tent, too wrapped up in their game to even bid the Champion a good night.

That was fine. He smiled, nodded and watched their retreat. This Wintersend would be a blessing for them, indeed, and all those forthcoming in what he hoped were a pair of long, intertwined lives. His own future seemed a little bit murkier. Things had been going well with Josie, so well... but now they'd been apart for a fortnight, longer than since before they'd shared a first, chaste kiss in the aftermath of a mission to the Emerald Graves. His own Wintersend hung on a blade's edge... but that was what Wardens and Champions were for, was it not? To be brave in the face of all danger? He knew that he was, in truth, neither. Perhaps he could at least pretend a while longer, though.

Ser Roger flopped heavily beside him, interrupting his reverie. He stroked a grey, bushy mustache. "I just came from making water, Champion... can't get to sleep, yet. Bloody insomnia creeps up on you in middle age, doesn't it?"

Blackwall offered him a flask of Golden Scythe. "Like creaking joints or silver in your beard."

"Aye. What's on my head and face are bad enough; what's on my chest and between my legs is truly depressing." He accepted the flask, drank deeply, and gestured towards Maddy's tent. The two young chevaliers within were having an indiscreet, impromptu party. "They're going to die, you know."

"Come off it, man," Blackwall said. "I know you're a Templar and all but I don't think anyone's going to die of what they're doing."

"Not that." Roger sighed. "What I'm doing, maybe. Or not doing. It was all I could do to purge that low level spellbind, today." He handed Blackwall back the flask.

He drank. "You managed, though. It's the stress of this situation in the Marches. These young lions don't realize what a real cluster-fuck it all has the potential to be, so they're treating it like a weeks long fennec hunt. You're old enough to know better, so it's throwing you off."

"Not you, though. You look like a man fifteen years younger, out there, swinging that axe like a straw."

"I'm just a good actor." Blackwall rotated his shoulder, the one Adorno had skewered. It crackled. Roger winced in sympathy. "I feel like I'm about to fall apart from the top down. My head will just topple off, one day, and the rest of me will follow."

"I understand," Roger said. He picked up a stick, doodled a Templar ensignia in the sand. Though he was only a year or two above fifty, his face looked positively ancient in the flickering firelight. "It's not just that, though. They are an untested force supported by an old, broken down man. I'm not a great mage hunter, or demon fighter. I came from Montsimmard, worked mostly as a private bodyguard for First Enchanter Illana and Madame de Fer. Our mages were tame, our Templars easy to get along with."

He shifted his considerable bulk. Roger, Blackwall reflected, must have been a physical force to be reckoned with in his youth. He was still a powerful man. His face and frame sagged, though, as if the weight of years dragged him to the ground. "These skirmishes against men-at-arms and the occasional spellbind no more dangerous than a hedge mage don't worry me, understand. I wake each morning with fear that we'll run across something more serious, though--that we'll face a detachment of heavy cavalry from the League, or that an enchanter with more talent will strike at us, or raise a demon or two. Even if we manage to best him he might become an abomination and tear us to pieces."

"That's why we're avoiding pitched battle," Blackwall said. "Hit and run attacks, against small groups. We strike fast, with all the fury that the chevaliers errant are known for, and have no compunction about flight when the time is right--hard though it is to wrangle those hard-headed youngsters, I admit. Our real purpose is to make it so that Evelyn Trevelyan can march her relief column to Kirkwall more or less unopposed."

"Fair enough, fair enough." Roger raised his hands. "Don't blame me when it all ends in tears, though... I warned you, after all." He leaned back, hands clasped behind his head, to watch the stars. Sacrifice hung high overhead, offering mute, mournful testimony to the world. It fit Roger's personality well, he thought, and had always been one of his favorite constellations. A realist to the end, just like his father before him, though hopefully that end would be in a warm bed with a jug of wine and a woman, not at the tip of a hunger abomination's claws.

"Tears are a waste of good water, Roger," Blackwall said. "There's enough desert in the world that I don't feel comfortable with them." He couldn't know, then, how wrong he'd be proven. Wintersend was more than a month away, though, and in spite of their hardship the world, bathed in mellow moonlight, seemed like it was not so dark a place afterall.


	7. Roughing It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sera and the Chargers fight an asymmetrical war in the Wildervale. Sera finds some aspects of this nicer than others.

Sera hugged herself, rubbed her arms and hopped from one foot to another. "Arse-piss-bollocking-fuckity-shit-goblins!" She danced, turned short circles, and squatted up and down. "It's fuggin' awful out here! Cold, cold, cold."

Dalish, leaning on what everyone generously pretended was her bow, laughed. "Is this truly the worst place you've ever been, lethallin?" They had been on a night patrol and, as morning closed in and the temperature dropped to its lowest, Sera had become a restless, fidgeting nightmare. It was not too differenT, she supposed, than a passel of arguing children, sleepy or hungry, in the back of an aravel. It was easy to forget, when one saw Sera's deadly archery--the equal to any hunter--how young she truly was.

Sera glowered at her. "I've been to worse places than you can imagine, chippie. And quit the knife-ear shit. You could be calliuse a shemlen slur." Dalish shook her head.  
ng me nasty names, for all I know."

"So distant from us that you'll   
"Yeah, well, your kind don't want me any more than anyone else does. Least normal folks have the decency to talk shite about me in people talk, the kind I can understand. 'Lethawhatzie...' Ugh." She blew a raspberry.

"I called you 'lethallin,' Sera," Dalish said. "It means 'friend.' I'd love to call you that in truth, not just passing." She smiled. "I don't bite; I promise."

"Then why didn't you just say friend. That's what friends do, hey? You didn't have to get all elfy with it." She grimaced. "That's like Solas. No one wants to be like Solas. Bald."  
"Oh, I don't know... I've known some lovely bald men. It's not so bad as all that." Dalish laughed. "But I take your meaning well. Have you heard him natter on about the poor, benighted Dalish? How we have drifted so far from our days of glory that we are nothing more than vagabonds and drifters?" She rapped her bow on a tree trunk. "As if I and every other Dalish do not know we are drifters. I mean... we drift, do we not? It is rather self-evident without his philosophizing."

"You do at that," Sera said. "He's got this face he pulls, looking at you... all sad puppy-eyes, like how dumb and not proper elfy you are has just depressed the shit out of him. I mean... maybe I don't want to be an elf, yeah? I wasn't raised to be one."

"It's not so bad, really, and not as important to who you really are as those like Solas or my old Keeper like to make it. Just an accident of birth. I mean, if I was born a dwarf or human then I would still be Dalish." She stroked her chin. "Well, what I mean to say is that I'd be 'Dalish' as in myself, not as in the member of a wandering clan of elves."

"Yeah," Sera said. "I follow." She considered it a moment. "I wish I could have been born Qunari... all big and muscles and phwor. Plus I could poke folks in the arse with my horns, if they were acting all cuntish."

"Bull says that Par Vollen is nothing to write home about," Dalish said. "I guess he wouldn't write home about it, anyway, since he'd be writing to Par Vollen to complain about Par Vollen. My point is that everything seems so... grey there, according to him. And not just their skin. He says there's not enough 'freaks, geeks and weirdos' to keep it interesting."

"Maybe I could've been one of those Tal-Vashoth." Sera grinned. "All wild and horny and ripping shit up." Her grin swiftly inverted. "Horny on my head, not looking for a date. Though that too, yeah, since I'd be blazing gorgeous with an arse to die for and a great, lovely pair of tits."

Dalish giggled. "Krem says that Bull has the best rack north of Perivantium... and then he usually ends up chasing Krem around and they wrestle about and break all the furniture into kindling." She stifled herself. "That's after they've been in their cups for half a night, though, and never more than twice a week."

Something rustled in the trees, up ahead and below. Sera raised two fingers. "Company coming. Let's see who the lucky winners are."

They crept forward, pushed slender branches aside. A detachment of men-at-arms from Hasmal, armed with swords and bucklers, trundled along the forest path with a small, hand-driven wain. Neither woman knew what was within--could have been grain or gold, for the payroll--but both knew it was for the best if it did not reach the front near Kirkwall. About half a dozen strong, they took no real pains to disguise their movement, tramping through the woods on heavy boots as if this was a long training march in the meadows near their home.

Sera nodded to Dalish. She grinned. "Right... let me get my bow good and sighted." She began to draw on the lyrium, racing through her blood. A tell-tale tingle danced on the air, set Sera's teeth as on edge as it always did. Dalish was okay but... ugh. Bloody robe was a bloody robe, even if she wore pants. "One archer to another, we know how important it is to get a good sight on your bow..."

"Yeah," Sera said. "Especially when it don't even have a string on it."

The moment came. Dalish released her spell. The forest came alive, around the men-at-arms. Gripping vines twined around arms and legs and thorns ripped at unprotected faces or throats. They began to curse in heavily accented voices, a curious mixture of Starkhaven's lilt and deep, Nevarran gutturals, lamenting this knife-ear trick. They hacked at the unnatural growth but found the enchanted wood more resilient than natural growth could ever have been.

Sera laughed. "I'll show 'em a fuggin trick, yeah?" She tossed a flask of fire among the soldiers. It exploded. Flames raced along the vines, up and down men and women's bodies, clung to shirts, pants, cloaks and helmets. Curses turned to shrieks on the crisp, early morning air. Skin reddened, blackened and burst, splitting under the intense heat of what her grenade contained. Bodies curled under the assault, so many autumn leaves in a Harvestmere bonfire. Shock and agony were cruel, effective weapons.

A couple gathered what courage they could find, amid searing pain. They raised their hot swords in blistered hands, broke toward the source of their torment. Sera finished one with an arrow through the throat. He toppled backward in a spray of blood just in time to miss Dalish's bolt of Fade energy ripping away his companion's sword arm at the shoulder.

Both women picked their way down the slope, stepping gingerly over the human wreckage they had created along the way. "Ugh," Sera said. "Don't ever get any prettier, do it?"

"No," Dalish said, "no indeed. Though not so ugly as one of ours in this state." She closed her large, grey eyes. "Ar lasa mala revas mir din'an."

Sera rubbed her eyes. "All elfy again. Haven't they suffered enough?"

"It was important," Dalish said. "Something I had to do." She gestured toward the wain. "Look... the chest they were transporting is intact. Let's see if there's something within that the Chargers can use."

"Horns up, hey? They must've used fuggin' ironbark."

Apart from a few superficial scorch marks, the chest seemed unmarked, even curiously cool. It stood conspicuous against the wreckage of both wain and drover. They ran their hands along the smooth, grey wood--it was ironbark, indeed, from the Green Dales--searching for a latch or lock. Upon finding it, Sera set to work with fine tools held in small, deft fingers.

After the work of a few moments, she popped the latch. The chest sprang open. Before even checking for traps, Sera plunged her hand in. She had not, after all, lived a life of careful consideration and this didn't really seem like the time to start. She raised up a palmful of barley. "Poor bastards," she said. "Died for a few sacks of grain. Not even good stuff, either." She sighed. "Looks like we're on for barley soup again tonight... and the next night... and for the next month."

Neither woman could imagine trying to haul it, so they marked the chest's location and returned to camp. This was a job for bigger, burlier blokes like Rocky, Krem or even the Bull himself. When they crossed the threshold and turned their watch over to Stiches and Grim--he grunted in appreciation at the report of their obliteration of the enemy wain and its escort, and promised to bring in the food--Dalish yawned. "I'm going to pop off and shut my eyes a while. It's been a long night and roasting shem soldiers alive always tires me right out." She waggled her fingers. "See you later leth--er, 'friend.'"

"Yeah, yeah." Sera waved absently. "Catch ye on the flip, mate." Dalish offered a quick, light-hearted curtsey and saunted toward her tent. Sera shivered, tried to hug the cold out, found it originated as much in her bones as the Wildervale air. Something just seemed... wrong, about Dalish's reaction to the fighting, maybe how all the Chargers she had worked with treated the war. 

Sera hadn't ever been squeamish about doing what needed to be done, the thing was. You could ask Lord Arsehole Harmond about that, if he still had a face that was, but nonchalance regarding people like the men-at-arms they had just roasted prickled in her short, shaggy hair. Things had become complicated, all of a sudden. Sera loathed complication, almost as much as she hated Solas droning on and on about how she didn't add anything to a kingdom that had been dead longer than she could imagine anything lasting or stupid nobles being vicious shits to little people.

That was it, maybe. The little people. It all came down to them, didn't it? And those men-at-arms from Hasmal were little, just blokes and girls doing what they thought needed doing, like she did, and getting fried crispy for their troubles. But... weren't the people in Kirkwall, the ones that the these Marchers were hurting, just as little? Even littler? It made her head hurt. Some problems you couldn't just shoot an arrow or two into the arse of. Those were the worst. Sera hated them, mostly because they made her head hurt.

She stalked through the camp, kicking pine-cones. Flaring, ophidian eyes promised the same to anyone who bothered her, so even Bull's famously gregarious company left the nug-nosed little elf alone to her thoughts. It was a shame, to be honest, that Dagna wasn't here. Sera smiled. She liked talking to Widdle. The red-haired dwarf, aside from being cuter than buttons, had a way of helping to make sense of Sera's racing tumble of thoughts. She was interested in things the way they were, not how they had been or could be, because she saw how to pick them apart and make it better. That made her like Sera the way she was, too, instead of comparing her to elves long dead like certain bald bollock-rollickers or making up stupid arse songs about her like Creepy the Bard. She enjoyed the Sera in front of her, just the way she did the components of her enchantment apparatus. It was part of what made Widdle so special.

Sera wouldn't know anything about that, being special; she just knew how to poke arseholes with arrows.

Well, if not Widdle, then Bully and Dory were here to talk to. Maybe. It was early but, they could be up and not... at things. Didn't matter if they were. Shite didn't matter between mates, if they really needed you or you them, but she didn't like interrupting if she didn't have to. The noises from their tent... even in her mood, Sera stifled a giggle. Had to be as terrifying to the League of Exalted Slap-nuts as any of Dalish's spells. Had to.

In for a bit in for a sovereign, though... and besides, those sounded like snoring noises. Time for ups, anyway. She poked her head through the tent flap, eyes closed. "Ahoy, mates," she said. "Bully, Dory... you alive in there? It's right about sun-up."

Bull begged for five more minutes and rolled over deeper into the blankets, but Dorian sat up, rubbed the backs of his hands against his eyes, and yawned. He was a fair cry from his usually well put together self--bleary eyed, messy hair and pencil thin mustache hanging limp around his lips instead of perfectly waxed. It made sense, though. No one looked hoity toity sleeping, not even Madame de Bitch. Sera had creeped on her enough to know. "What do you need, sourling?" Dorian said, voice muzzed by sleep. 

She smirked at their little joke--their very little joke, Varric had once sniffed. "Feeling up-fucked arse, mate." She dropped to her knees. "Just roasted some blokes for a month's worth of fuggin' soup. Soup!"

"If I can discern any of what you're trying to tell me," he said, "I would assume that you found some part of mercenary work in what feels like the rectal cancer of the world to be unappetizing, last night."

"Well, you know what they say about assuming, hey?"

He leaned back against his pillows and Bull's broad shoulder. "No, what do they say?"

"Er, something about arses and you and me. I never quite got it." She shivered.

He waved her off. "It's not important. You're cold?"

"Hells yes."

"Funny," he said. "I figured that a pampered Vint and Qunari from far Par Vollen would be suffering more than a little madwoman from Fereldan. Don't you crawl in the snow even before you learn how to walk?"

"Not me, mate. I'm from Denerim--the big city. It gets cold, yeah, and we get grey, grimy, piss-tasting snow, but there's always a pot-shop or tavern or cathouse to slip into and warm up. In the forest, not so much." She rubbed her arms, vigorously. "I feel like my fuggin' feet are about to snap off."

Dorian raised the blanket. "Come on under and get warm. There's enough of him that it's like a roaring fire."

Sera slitted her eyes, for just an instant--there was always one's reputation as a hard-arse to consider--and then acquiesed. It was just too bloody cold to care. She snugged down between them. It was a comfortable place where she'd spent a frigid night or two on the road between Haven's ruins and Skyhold with comfortable smells. Bull was sweat, leather and oiled metal, always, and Dorian smelled a whole lot like Lady Von Prissruffles, to be honest. Cardamon and embrium oil, cloves, cinnamon and sandwalwood hung in a cloud around him. They smelled like home and kindness, just as much as did the acrid stench of enchantment apparatus clinging to Widdle. Home. Sera sighed; it wasn't a concept she was really familiar with, but it could grow on a body.

Bull grumbled in his sleep. "If you've brought home another lap nug, kadan, you're going to feed it and clean up after it," he said. "Those little hands freak me the hell out."

 

"This nug is more feral than most, amatus. If you get your fingers too close to her she's apt to nip them off." Sera giggled at that.

Bull finally hauled himself awake, blinked his intact eye at the early light and yawned away the last vestiges of sleep. "I was dreaming the most wonderful dream about being back in Skyhold, on an actual bed, and then waking up to an omelet made with a dozen eggs, white leeks and a whole rasher of bacon. Maybe some toast on the side, maybe not, or a stack of hoecakes swimming in butter, syrup and jam."

"And that, my good man," Dorian said, poking the Iron Bull right below his ribs, "is why you've become a trifle soft around the middle."

"I'm an enormous fellow. It takes a lot to fuel these muscles."

"Yes, particularly the one in your belly, I see."

Bull scowled. Sera's giggles had threatened to become her full blown, braying mirth. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," Bull said. "I know we don't have anything but whatever roots we can scavenge and barley for the next half of forever. A man can dream, though."

For reasons neither man could fathom, the mention of barley crushed Sera's mood. "Barley," she said. "Dearly bought, that shite, for all that it starts to taste like dirt. Rather eat dirt, maybe." She furrowed her brow. "Cleaner."

"I'm not sure it upsets me all that much," Bull said. "What's going on, hambone?"

"War is stupid and I don't like it and we shouldn't fight in them."

"Hard to be a mercenary without a war to fight in. People get suspicious if we just sit around and start to wonder why they're paying my enormous fees."

"I know, just... ugh." She picked at her fingers, worrying the ragged nails. "A group of lads from Hasmal came across me and Dalish, this morning. They started out toting barley in a little wagon and ended up all melted and shot with arrows. Ugly, yeah?"

"I can imagine," Dorian said. "But do you think you two wouldn't have ended up hacked with their swords, after worse?"

"I know we would. That's why war's stupid. We wouldn't have met them, if we weren't fighting. They'd be in Hasmal and I would be somewhere the hell else."

"It would have just been someone else, then," Bull said. "Some poor fool in Kirkwall's Lowtown or Alienage. Life is cruel, and sometimes we have to be hard so that we can just survive it."

"I know... kicked a bastard's face in once, remember, yeah? But..." She folded her arms against a growing chill, for all that the sun was rising. "He was big people... these were just little people, feeling mean because their big people told them they could be."

"They might have been anyway, you know," Dorian said. "Or not. Sainted brothers and sisters of the Chantry or the scum of the earth. All you know is that they were part of Hasmal's war effort against Kirkwall, and that our Inquisition is working diligently to make that effort a failure. Some were going to die, for all Mischa's nice words, especially out in a vicious back-alley like where the Chargers always fight."

"Amen to that, kadan." He slid his huge arm around Sera's shoulders. "Look at it this way... you remember the Blight, don't you?"

For all that she'd been hardly more than a baby, Sera couldn't forget those unending nights. "Yeah... don't hardly forget a friggin' Archdemon roosting on Fort Drakon and shrieks running wild in the Alienage, do ye?"

"I can imagine not. And you remember the Warden, Ravin Brosca, and his companions... how some had to die so that others could be saved?"

"Yeah, I guess... he gave up the Arl of Redcliffe's city house, let his bodyguard and Ser Cauthrien get cut down by a pack of ogres so that the king and queen could escape." She was shaking. "The noises they made... ugh. It took her so long to go down. Stupid... stupid. Should have just laid there, from the beginning, when the first big bastard broke her ribs. Stupid. Tore her fuggin' arms off, then, after she'd lopped the hands off half a dozen of them and gutted a few more."

"Such detail," Dorian said. "How do you remember all this?"

She shrugged. "I watched it. I followed Brosca and his mates--they'd done me a good turn so they must have been friends, little stupid Sera figured--and it's not like I had anything better to do with the world ending."  
"And you understand why they did what they did," Bull said.

"Yeah. Don't mean I have to like it, though."

"I don't like what happened to me in Seheron," Bull said. "Worst memory of my life." He leaned back. "My squad and I had just finished fighting a pack of Vint blades--good soldiers, those bastards all wrapped in chain and laminate from head to toe."

"Aeterni," Dorian said. "The elite of our armies."

"Yeah, those shitheads." Bull rumbled, deep in his chest. "We won--Qunari karasaad aren't considered some of the world's finest fighters for nothing--but we were exhausted. Blood splashed all over us from head to toe, horns chipped and chopped, muscles burning like a fire."

He went on. "Suddenly, after it was all over, I see this little boy come running out of the fog. He was one of the Grey Ones--born and raised, not Tal-Vashoth." He shook his head. "That whole damn island is nothing but fog. My men were cautious but felt okay--sometimes the natives would bring us presents, if we ran the Vints off. We weren't beloved, or anything, but we at least didn't make a habit of sacrificing folks to demons."

"It's a gauche pastime of my people," Dorian said mildly.

"Yeah, that's a way to put it," Bull said. "Anyway, as the boy grew closer, I saw something in his hand, something bright." He grimaced. "A fucking saar-qamek grenade. If he managed to smash the flask, we were screwed. So I knew what I had to do."

"And you did," Sera said. "Even though it was awful."

"Exactly. It's not a pretty life, sometimes, but we do what we have to do to get through it."

"Yeah," she said. "Even eating barley."

"Yeah," Bull said. "Even barley." He smiled. "So... Dorian and I are going to get up and kick the day shift into action. You feel like heading to your tent or are you going to sleep here?"

She yawned and settled into Bull's pillow. "Here's fine, mates. I just need a little rest and I'll be fine, that's all."

"A little rest," Bull said, "that's right." After he and Dorian had risen, he pulled the coverlets up around Sera's neck. She snored softly. Rest. She needed it, they all did. Maybe it was okay for now, but he'd started to see signs of asala-taar in her, the same soul sickness that had torn him near to pieces. That would be a tragedy. She had so much soul, so much to offer, a flame burning so brightly...  
He stopped, at the tent flap, and blew her a kiss before heading out to greet the day. She would be all right--he'd make sure of it. The Iron Bull made sure that his Chargers always met the world with horns up--even if they were just honorary members. No one under his care would go through what he had, if he could help it. The real misery, though, was that he didn't know if he could.


	8. Notes From All Around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A smattering of letters from all fronts in the war plaguing the Free Marches.

_Dearest Hawke, Kitten, Varric, Lord Trevelypants and Lanky Lady Seeker,_

_Felicitations! I am writing this from the bright Hercinia coast. I would have said sunny, but as it is well after dark this would be most certainly inaccurate. How, you may all be asking, could it be bright during night-time? The moon is, after all, but a sliver in the sable sky. The answer is quite simple; Hercinia's entire waterfront blazes rather merrily. I would say that the wails of the men burning would haunt me 'til the end of my days, but that would be lying and lying is wrong._

_My Felicisima Armada and I have not had this much fun in absolute ages. After the ugliness in Dairsmuid a pall fell over the people of Rivain, one that even the subsequent, greater ugliness we visited on our Templars could lift. The jolliest Raider could not heft his cutlass and the whores of Llomerryn neither blushed nor giggled. Dolphins would not jump in our harbor. Well, they don't often, anyway, because of all the scum and shit in the harbor but... they weren't jumping from sadness, at this point. It was a travesty!_

_Now I see smiles wherever I stroll, just not on the face of anyone from Hercinia, obviously. We fired the docks, first, and then storage houses along the waterfront. Don't worry, Varric, don't worry... we made sure to remember to pillage before we burned! Toc found a Templar, captaining a little corvette, rigged as a caravel, one of the only vessels size remaining that was bigger than a skipjack--and no match for my darling frigate, Queen Asha's Revenge. He swore he wouldn't give up that bright, pretty silverite armor of his, something about honor, blah-de-blah, so Toc just up and tossed the chap overboard still wearing it. Natural philosophy now tells us, after careful testing, that a man wearing heavy plate cannot swim, no matter how he may thrash. Learning is wonderful!_

_I can imagine, after the pig's ear we make of the city's shipping district tonight, that there will be no vessel of Hercinia's blockading Kirkwall by the time a message can reach her captains, by means magical or mundane. We will be far out to sea, of course, by the time anything threatening arrives. I can't decide if I should just lead them a merry chase or string them along just enough to pick off and plunder them one by one. I need a few more ships to challenge Qunari shipping heading into Seheron and this might be a chance to pick up a brigantine and frigate or two. Maybe three!_

_I can hear my darlings calling, and so I must be off. Be good for me, and do make sure to tell Sebastian hello for me before you turn him over your knee and spank him._

_Love always,_

_< 3 Isabela <3_

_P.S. In case any of you were curious, Toc has found that he truly enjoys sending Templars to sleep with the fish--almost as much as he enjoys carving them in twain! I asked if he would ever tire of culling gits from the Chantry militant but he says no, probably not. Honestly... some people just get stuck on the same hobbies forever! I have told him that it is not an attractive habit, especially since he is covered in Templar blood all the time, but some people just will not listen._   
_*_   
_Captains of the Flower of the Waking Sea,_

_You are hereby ordered to stand-down your blockade of Kirkwall and return to your mother city with all haste. The dreaded Felicisima Armada and their sea-witch queen, the long-time Raider known as Isabela Naishe, has obliterated our waterfront district, docks and all the storage houses there. Trade could be crippled for months, as it is, and might never recover if she returns. The Triumverate of Banns are ripping out their hair and the Revered Mother has done nothing but wail to the Maker to ask clemency for two nights running. It is beginning to grate upon our nerves._

_So please, do not even wait upon the wind. Have one of your mages of the primal school whip up a little breeze to bring you winging home. We do not care if it becomes a squall later. May it fall on Kirkwall and the Prince of Starkhaven, a plague be upon him for convincing us to drag you away from your duties to your home in the first place. We are well aware that he promised Hercinia a place of power in the new order of the Free Marches, once Kirkwall was defeated and razed, but are equally aware that she must exist to enjoy that honor._

_Yours in faith,_

_The Merchants' and Bankers' Guild of the Bannorn of Hercinia._   
_*_   
_Sweetest Mishy-Mop,_

_Hullo from your big sister! Man, I'll tell you, Mish, if I didn't know better I would be downright chuffed that you're man Blackwall was throwing this party of his on the Wounded Coast without me! I know, I know, it's all about politics (yuck) and how the Marshal of Markham would pitch one of his fits if I just marched the Ostwick army in force down his road and blah whatever, and with an open road I can just hurry my tail to Kirkwall before the good part of the siege ends, but it still burns my buttons that there's a brawl happening somewhere and I'm not in the middle of it. You know your big sis, love duckling. It's just the way I am._

_Speaking of the whole Kirkwall situation, ugh! Bloody Sebastian Vael, huh? You know, he and I used to run around quite a bit when we were the Elmyra the Imp's age and got into all sorts of exciting trouble. Last I saw him was a few years ago, right before that damn fool friend of Declan Hawke's blew the Kirkwall Chantry back to the Maker. He had changed, and not for the better in my opinion. I'm as good an Andrastian as anyone but... well, that much time spent on your knees, mumbling to the Maker, could be far better used hunting, at sword drill, drinking, whoring... most anything!_

_I'd understand, in a way, if he was just some ambitious git who wanted to take the freedoms that Viscounts and Teyrns and Arls and Banns have fought to preserve for years, I really could, but the sick thing is that I think he really and truly means what he says about doing all this for the Maker and avenging Elthina. I mean, really. She was a nice lady, and all, but starting a war on her behalf? Bloody mad. And besides, since she was such a nice lady then wouldn't she want there to be less fighting in her name, not more?_

_Be careful out there, brother. You were always safe, or so I thought, ensconced in your office at our little Circlem studying why lyrium makes things go "boom!" Now you're the Herald of Andraste and the Inquisitor and I don't know damn what else and someone called "the Elder One" is chasing you around on an Archdemon, last I heard. Hard business, that. Old folks are deadly when they've their dander up. Remember how Grand-mere can be, when she's been into the sherry? Luckily she hasn't got an Archdemon, at least._

_Until we meet again, my lovey,_

_Evelyn "the Heir" Trevelyan_

_P.S. Mummy, Daddy and Elmyra send their love. Mummy and Elmyra also send the brownies; the burnt ones are mostly the Imp's._

_P.P.S. When are you and that lovely Seeker going to get married or at least crank out a little Trevelyan-Pentaghast so that I can adopt it as my heir? You know I don't have much use for men, apart from you and Daddy, and marriage seems like such a bore._

_P.P.P.S. Daddy says I'm to stop treating you and Lady Pentaghast like a "pair of Taslin Stridres, all set for breeding." I think he's being awfully unfair. Do be a sweet Mishy-Mop and write him to say you won't mind doing just a little breeding, just for me, or at least trying so very hard._

_Heh. Hard. Bet I made you blush, sweet brother. You know I always can._   
_*_   
_Prince Sebastian,_

_My lord, I must write to inform you, full regretfully, that our war effort in Wildervale is an utter shambles. It is unlikely, if events continue to transpire as they do at current, that we will be able to provide assistance to your siege of Kirkwall in the form of uninterrupted supply lines for your army between the Minanter Valley and your forces._

_We are facing rather unexpected difficulties, in this region. Although our best intelligence, before the campaign, suggested a wild region sparsely inhabited by trappers, hermits, lunatics and a Dalish band or two we have found, instead, a guerilla insurgency dedicated to making our lives a living hell._

_The common soldiery are divided as to whether we are being harassed by unusually well organized bandits, said Dalish clans, a local resistance force or, most fancifully, ghosts. The appearance of a giant, horned man, called similar in stature to a Pride Demon by our more superstitious soldiers, is most concerning to them. He can strike like lighting, cleaving men in twain with one blow of his great axe and then fading, like an ash wraith, into the mist._

_It is all too likely, to our woe, that this is no mere band of brigands led by a particularly vicious Tal-Vashoth. The presence of at least three mad elves, a dwarf in love with explosions and more than one apostate make it clear that we have attracted the attention of Bull's Chargers, the ferocious band of mercenaries from Orlais. Their archers have made us afraid to leave the light of our fires in the night, to piss, and their mages rain fire down on our heads just for the meanness of it._

_The fate of two soldiers, in particular, has passed into legend among their fellows. They wandered off from their platoon, to molest or seduce an elven maid with dark hair, and were never seen alive again. I will not describe to you, knowing that you are a kind-hearted man my prince, the condition we found them in. Do know that their screams could be heard for hours, echoing off the hills and trees like a ghostly wind. I have let their fate stand as a warning, to our younger soldiers, against the dangers of strange women. It has proven a more pungent warning than even a visit to a ward for the victims of venereal diseases._

_Please, my prince, send us help! I know that you are engaged in a struggle, even as we speak, against elements loyal to your old friends Guard-Captain Aveline Hendyr and the disgraced Champion, Declan Hawke, but we are fighting for our lives out here. Anything you can spare would be appreciated, Your Highness. A detachment of light cavalry would, I think, do especially finely at routing these ruffians and helping the supply lines to remain open._

_Yours in faith, service and honor, for life and beyond,_

_Col. Tunis Zaro_

_P.S. My daughter, Lt. Brida Zaro, is attached to your personal guard, a favor from your father to me. Tell her, if you would my prince, that her mother is proud of her, as proud as I am to serve you as I did your father years ago. He was a good man, as you are._   
_*_   
_Bethany,_

_I hope that this letter finds you safe. After the disaster at Adamant, earlier this year, I have come to realize that even though you are a Grey Warden, one of the finest force mages in Thedas and a redoubtable warrior besides that you, like I, will never be truly secure in this world. I searched for you, in horror, among the dead. My heart did not beat from the time we entered that accursed fortress until I learned from one of the surviving officers, after leaving the Fade with Inquisitor Trevelyan, that you had gone east to Kirkwall on urgent business with Aveline._

_Now, again, you find yourself in danger. Sebastian is a good man, Maker knows better than me, but dangerous when he sets that implacable will toward something. It is, sadly, set toward the destruction of our adopted home. Anders is not there; he cannot be. It would be hard to convince me that he is even alive, after all this time and the guilt that must lay on his heart. Would his sense of justice, true justice and not a spirit calling itself by that name, allow him to go on after doing what he did? Alas, he and Sebastian are much alike; neither will be convinced of their own fallibility by anything short of an edict from the Maker. And now innocents lie caught between them, ground by the millstones of their hard-headedness._

_Forgive me this, my rambling, but do not forget that I am your big brother. I cannot think of you as anything but a little girl with skinned knees, pulling after me in the forest, nor forget how pale you were lying in my arms, in the Deep Roads. No matter how far you rise, and I know that you have become a Lieutenant of the Grey and my heart swells with pride at it, you will always be the tiny hand in mine as we stroll the wooded trails back home.Thank the Maker for Stroud. Jean-Marc is a good man and I am glad that he, too, survived the debacle at Adamant._

_Wherever you are, be safe. With Mother and Carver gone all these years, almost as many as Father, you are the only family I have left. Well, apart from Uncle Gamlen... and we've both always said that my mabari Ganon is a better bearer of our crest than he could ever be. Regardless I hope that he, too, has found a hole to bolt into and escaped our old friend's vengeance. I have no doubt that he has. Our dear uncle always did have a way of making it out of the house five minutes ahead of bill collectors, gamblers and disgruntled associates of all stripes, didn't he?_

_Leliana's ravens have a geas on them, to seek wherever you may be, so it will be delivered even at the ends of the earths. I know that you and Sebastian were close. Perhaps you can speak to him, if you truly are in Kirkwall, if the opportunity arises. If anyone can talk sense into the man, crack the shell around his heart, it is you. I cannot accept, somewhere in myself, that he truly has given himself over to the hardness, cruelty and ambition that he always decried in his family. Perhaps that is the price of power. If that's so then I am glad that I never sought it, disdained the viiscount's crown when they laid it on my head and took to my heels with Merrill. We may not have much, but we do have each other._

_I cannot say much, for fear this will fall into the wrong hands, but take heart, if you are in Kirkwall. This will all be over soon._

_Declan Hawke_

_P.S. The bottle of Princess' Piss you sent us, last Satinalia, was... well, if not excellent then assuredly full of personality. Since all ritewine is made from the dregs of whatever you find in your rangings, I realize that it can never be perfectly replicated, and I find myself almost reassured at the fact. A Warden of our acquaintance swore it smelled of an Archdemon's blood, and even the Iron Bull, a Qunari Reaver, refused to drink it out of fear it would make his horns fall off. What I'm saying is... if all else fails, dose Choir Boy with some of your ritewine. It will surely be the end of him._   
_*_   
_Widdle,_

_Widdle! Oy! I'm writing out my thoughts on paper, like, because, well, it seems like if I don't them I'm gonna fuggin EXPLODE. Things in Wildervale are wild. Kind of like you'd expect, then. But maybe not. War is not like fucking shit up with friends. It's just not. I thought it would be on a huge scale, but we're not just messing with shits who deserve it... the people I end up putting arrows into are ending up way too much like people for me to like it. I fuckin hate it!_

_I asked Bully about what I should do to feel better, and he told me to try and go kickin a tree until I wasn't so worried any more. I think he was takin the piss outta me. I tried it, and I didn't end up with anything but a sore arse-fuckin foot. I think I mighta broke something in there, somethin toe-wise. I got him back, though, don't you worry. He's gonna wake up quite surprised with a slogan shaved in a private area. Sera n Widdle 4eva, hehehehehe!!! You might call it a, heh, demand of my Qun, if you will._

_It was when I asked Dori that he suggested writing you. Well, he said someone I trusted. I said writing all those words sounded like something stupid Varric would do, and I didn't have enough chest hair for it, but he said writing could be like talking but just with ink instead of breath. Dori's smart. You need to come around some, when we get back home. We can make cookies and play charades or something. They won't be hatred cookies, or deception cookies. They'll be chocolate cookies. Good ones. Good enough to get you up out of that cave, at least. I know you're from Orzammar but Maker, Widdle... light of day won't fuggin kill ye._

_Ugh. It's almost time to go out on patrol, again. I'm not with Dalish, tonight, which is almost a shame because I kind of sort of maybe like her JUST a little bit. Or at least I don't hate her. She isn't as annoying as she should be, hey? I'm headed out with Krem of the Krop, that big, mightily confusing Vint bloke whose shield I can hide behind if something goes whopsy._

_Til I tickle your wee tummy again,_

_Sera Bear_   
_*_   
_Adorno,_

_With Josie preparing to take over in the family business, Laurien studying medicine and Olivier too young to worry about as yet (I believe he shall make an attache for Josie, attorney or scholar), that leaves only Antoine to square away in a trade. I see him training at arms, each day, with my soldati, and my oldest, most loyal bodyguard Carlo assures me that the boy shows promise with a sword, main-gauche and buckler. He also rides well and can bring down a hare with bow or sling from one hundred paces._

_As you are a duelist of some renown--when not called upon to battle a brute of a Grey Warden, at least, amici--and capitano to the Vitalita Respinto, I ask if you would kindly take my son under your wing and teach him the trade of the condottiero. He can act as your squire and receive instruction from you in logistics, tactics and the management of men. In time, perhaps, he can strike out on his own or, if your own sons do not wish to follow in your footsteps, lead the Vitalita in his own right._

_It was good to hear of the birth of my first grand-daughter, so recently! Allegra was overjoyed that you named the girl after her. And it is a true blessing from the maker that another child is on the way so quickly. If it is a son, I assume, you will name it after your father, my old friend Giovanni? Such a curse to hang on a little baby! Tchah, I kid. Your father is a good man, and Giovanni is a strong, fine name._

_Your loving Suocero,_

_Yves Montilyet_

_*_   
_Caro,_

_Bonjourno, dearest Gordon. Blackwall. Thom? I am not sure which to call you, from time to time. Oh, do not glower at me, as I'm sure you are... I am just teasing. I do not mean to hurt you. I would never do that. You know it as well as you know each inch of my heart's estate._

_How are things on the Wounded Coast? I can imagine that they are frightful, intense and violent... and that will be just among the chevaliers errant that you lead, forget the soldiers from the Tantervale army! Tcha... times of stress bring out the spirit of la buffone, in me. I scuff my shoes in the dust, like a clod kicking girl, blush, stammer and find myself unable to string together even the simplest of words. How such a fool manages to serve as a diplomat I can never figure out, but they all tell me that I am good and I pretend that I believe them._

_I have a piece of good news to share with you. The Giudici of La Corte D'Onoranza have promised that their families and interests will support us with troops and a variety of personnel. Casa Montilyet has promised a tercio of pichieri and balestrieri, which I will lead personally alongside my father, and Casa Otranto will provide the cavalieri of Vitalita Respinto. Others have pledged small support, though nowhere near as much, and it is all thanks to my Nonna. It is true what we have said for so many Ages; words in an Antivan mouth cut deeper than swords in lesser hands. Although, to be completely fair, it is not as if the swords are not fairly useful in their own right._

_Caro, Wintersend is less than a month away. We will be meeting on the Wounded Coast, to spend the holiday together, our first, and you will tell me the piece of important news you had for me, the question that could not wait on the breaking of the world. I am Antivan to the souls of my feet, so the intrigue of it all enraptures me._

_Necessity calls me away but I must write, first, that one of our great worries has come to nothing. My grandmother and father know of your true identity and have since before you surrendered yourself in Val Royeaux to save your friend Mornay. Papa rolled his eyes and Nonna said that if they had found you offensive the Crows would have long since poked a hole or two or three dozen in you. Isn't that wonderful? Not that they would have had you murdered, tesoro, just... that we do not have to hide our friendship our... affection for each other._

_Until Wintersend, then, tesoro. I miss the sound of your voice, the light in your eyes, your fingers in my hair._

_Con affecto,_

_Josephine Cherette Montilyet_


	9. Demons of Black Comedy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke, Varric and Merrill arrive in Kirkwall.

Varric drew a deep breath, gripped the wrought iron sleuice gate and pushed himself through into the Kirkwall docks. He didn't have to duck, even less than Merrill, and Declan might as well have been a contortionist harlequin from a troupe of comedic bards in Orlais, so the great city drove her fist into his face first. The randy, sour old harlot smelled of piss, week old fish and hard to remember, harder to forget nights on the town. In short, home. Varric heaved a sigh. Tears sprang, unbidden, to his eyes.

Merrill squatted down beside him. Even she, who had not even worn shoes on a visit to a Deep Roads entrance, wore them on this jaunt through the accumulated waste of Kirkwall's ages. "Are you all right, Varric? It's the waste, isn't it? The waste has gotten to you." She slipped her arm around his shoulders. "You should have tied a rag over your mouth, like Declan and I did. I know you said we looked foolish--I thought we looked a bit dashing--but now the vapors have gotten to you and we're going to be sitting targets for some of the night gangs." She looked around. "I wonder if they'll be dressed as nuns, or dancers... maybe squirrels. Squirrel dancers? Maybe the bandits will be dressed like the army men who've taken over. Don't worry, though." She smiled. "Either way, we'll protect you."

He squeezed her fingers. "It's not that, Daisy. You fled here, met your husband here, but I grew up in this place... Kirkwaller, born and raised. To think of it being invaded... I can't stand it, Daisy."

"It's how I think I would feel," Hawke said, "if I was to visit where Lothering used to be. Bethany has. She doesn't recommend it, says there isn't anything but a blackened smear where the chantry stood, a few cracked bones that the wolves, bears and pigs have been at. She couldn't even find Father's grave site, nor where the ogre tore Carver to pieces. Now she and Aveline are lost, somewhere in this city..."

Merrill went to him, pressed her head against his shoulder. "We'll find them, ma vhenan." She stood in silence, a moment. "My clan escaped the Blight, more or less unscathed... but our whole way of life is a war against forgetting what was taken. We call it suledin, enduring loss, but each day tears away a little piece more of what we were and none of the elvhen is interested in finding something new to be. No elf has walked beneath the boughs of Arlathan for more than twenty centuries, but neither have any of us sought nor planted any new trees to walk under." She chuckled softly; it might have been a sob. "You could call us a rather silly people. You would probably be right."

Neither shem nor durgen'len had anything to say to that, so they went on.

Varric had never seen the streets of the docks so clean of human refuse, especially after dark. War must have had a way of keeping you indoors unless you had the most pressing of urgencies to attend to, he mused. No clowns leaped out to attack them, nor exotic dancers to entice them, nor even a fortune teller to read the future in Merrill's palm. It just didn't seem like Kirkwall. Greasy lamplight still hung on the air, dancing against fog that smelled like last week's clams, but the eerie quietude felt altogether unnatural.

All over little reminders of the altered state of affairs stared them in the face. A list of rules, not out of place in the most oppressive Alienage in Orlais, stood bald faced on a post. The first on the list read, "Any out of their homes after curfew are subject to summary arrest by order of the Prince. Glory be to the Maker." The second, "To hear of a mage and not report him is to share in his crimes and subject to lex gladii. Will you open the gates of the Fade to our fair city? Glory to the Maker and His Bride." It grew more restrictive from there. Merrill laced her fingers between Hawke's and suppressed a shuddered. He stroked her short, dark hair.

Other things, piecs of graffiti, stood out, too. One sigil, in particular, caught Varric's eye, but he could not quite decide on the correct interpretation for it. A little bunch of orange flowers, one larger and taller than its fellows, had been hastily scrawled near many of the posted signs. Gang tagging, he would have assumed, but none of the usual thugs were in evidence on this cool evening and, besides... what kind of criminal organization took a little bunch of orange flowers as its emblem? They were usually things like the Dog Lord's bloody jawed mabari, or the Followers of She's seductive, pink devil. Something that made, at least, a species of sense. Ah, well. Just when you thought the old hometown couldn't get any goofier, she went and surprised you, he thought.

Up ahead, half a dozen burly figures strolled in the heavy, dimly lit fog. And that many evident spoke of at least a score unseen, Varric figured, and they carried themselves with a menace absent from Aveline's City Guard. The frontmost raised a truncheon and called out to them. "Ahoy! You!"

Hawke smiled and bowed. "Us-you or the you over there on the other size of the street? Maybe the ewe in the pasture, there?"

"Ha-ha, funny guy," he said. "I mean the big dog-lord, his painted knife-ear whore and the hairy little twerp. You know... that you."

"Oh," Hawke said. "So definitely us, then. Sort of... sad to hear us reduced to all that, though, don't you think?" He prepared himself to deploy his father's enormous, red cedar recurve. Bethany had been the recipient of Malcolm Hawke's staff, Honor, but Declan found the fury with which this bow slung arrows more than made up for the more exotic magical projectiles she had access to.

"I might weep," Varric said. He subtly shifted his weight, unlimbered Bianca, and set his shoulder. "I mean, I make my way home after so long away, especially having visited the ass ends of the world like the Western Approach and the Hissing Wastes, and this is the kind of greeting I get?" He sighed. "I know this is Kirkwall and all, but it should have been a rude gesture, sexual proposition and then a sullen challenge, not a sullen challenge right off the bat." He clucked his tongue. "I don't know how you boys do things up in Starkhaven, but we try to be a little civilized about it all down in Kirkwall."

Declan mimed a faint. "It's very provincial, there, you know. Do you remember how poor little Prince Sebastian mishandled his gung-bongling fork?"

Varric pressed the back of his hand to his forehead. "Andraste sighing to the Maker in the night I do! I have never seen a gung so poorly bongled! And with a fluch-wangling knife!"

Merrill leaned on the Torch of the Falon'Din, the staff she'd inherited from Marethari, and scratched her head. "I don't know what a gung or a fluch is, or how you'd bongle or wangle them, or doing much of either with Sebastian but... I do think you've riled those gentlemen to the point that they're about to attack us." She scuffed her feet on the dirty cobblestones. "I always did figure that you two's shenanigans would bring us to no good end."

Varric grinned. "I always said you'd fallen in with a bad crowd, Kitten, but you just couldn't stay away." A dozen Starkhaven men-at-arms launched themselves, unknowing, at possibly the most dangerous offensive trio to ever come out of Kirkwall. Four fell in seconds, including the rude sergeant, wearing Declan's grey goose feather shafts or Bianca's heavy, steel bolts in their chests and throats. The rest drew up short, considering a plan of attack that didn't involve rushing headlong to their deaths.

"I think I got the sergeant," Declan said. "I hope I did, anyway. Bloody bastard."

"He sort of reminded me of Bartrand... so I really hope I shot him." Varric laughed. "We'll check when it's all over."

"Who knows, maybe we both shot him? I'm willing to share."

"You're all heart, Hawke."

The remaining eight split into two groups. Declan and Varric wheeled to face one. They approached cautiously, shields raised. Varric had to admire how the fellow in the lead learned from the mistakes of his former leader. It didn't help much, he had to admit, when Bianca popped a smoke grenade into their midst. The turned away, coughing and sputtering. The distraction allowed Declan to sight and draw his huge bow with calm ease, picking shots as invariably fatal as if he'd been hunting deer for his mother to cook for him and the twins back home. Four men fell in the purple smoke and didn't move. The rude sergeant's replacement--Varric figured he might as well call him "quick study corporal"--hadn't been a bad commander, as these things go, but just hadn't expected the bomb. Ah, well. That was just life on these mean streets, eh?

The other four, pleased to have drawn the little knife-ear for their assignment, crept forward with rather sadistic glee. Kill her? Kill the other two and drag her off to keep as a toy? It might not be an awful night, after all. Well, for them. This painted elf girl could have a rough time of it, robe or not. They knew how to deal with those; robes needed tongues and fingers to cast their spells, and that's what wicked little knives had been made for, and you didn't need any of that for what they had in store for her. And if the pure, pretty Prince and his higher ups in their officer corps wouldn't approve? Well, secrets could be kept, down here in the ugly part of the city. They had been for years and would be for years more.

Suddenly, though, she did something that didn't make any sense. The painted elf drew a tiny dagger of her own and drew it across her wrist. Suicide? Bloody silly. They hadn't even come close to capturing her, yet, and both her men were still alive. A trickle of blood slithered into her hand. She clenched a fist around it; that fist began to glow an angry scarlet, and the glow suffused her whole being. The tiny sorceress, so demure at first, an innocent to be despoiled, grew tall and fey in the eldritch light. Her verdant eyes burned with something uncanny, a fury of the Dales, or memory of Arlathan, some region of the Fade unwelcoming to shemlen like them. It dawned somewhere in the depths of even their limited imaginations that something might not be going according to plan.

Four huge, horned hands reached out of the rift and torn a man limb from limb before he could even scream, let alone before the others could register what was going on. It came to them soon enough. They died screaming, in worse agony maybe than they had planned for her. Claws raked at bellies, uncoiling long loops of intenstines like streamers to drape them over lamp-posts, the grimmest party decorations in Thedas. Teeth unconnected to any earthly mouth chewed faces away from heads, left shrieking, bloody skulls below. One man found himself siezed by invisible hands, his cock and balls torn off and shove with gusto up his arse. Varric, had he the words or wind to say them, would have mentioned that Merrill might have uncovered the existence of secret demons of black comedy. Perhaps she had. If the four unfortunate Starkhaven men-at-arms knew, they died and took the secrets to their gory graves with them.

The moment passed, and Merrill's awful aura of power with it. The presence from beyond returned to its awful home on the fetid, blood soaked wind with soul wrenching laughter, more felt than heard, that chewed like rats at the edges of the brain. It was the kind of sound that promised promised retribution, rage and endless, gnawing hunger. She slumped to the street. Declan rushed to her, knelt and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Are you all right, ma vhenan?"

She clung to him. "Better than them, emma lath." She blinked back tears. "It takes a little more out of me each time, though. It's why I don't let my friends come out to play, very often."

"I don't mind, believe me. Fen'harel ma ghilana, ma vhenan, dirthara-ma sabelas."

She slumped against his broad, deep chest. Her face, painted by their blood and streaked with tears, seemed even paler than usual. "I know, ma vhenan, I know." She breathed shallowly, raggedly. Her heart's pulse felt thready in his arms. No larger than a child, incapable of cruelty, so kind and decent, but filled also with power and violence deeper than those of the hurricanes that lashed Seheron.

"Er, guys..." Varric ambled over to them, gingerly stepping around the splintered remains of what had only moments before been a man's ribcage. "This is all quite touching and elfy in nature but... one of those guys managed to wind his horn before Merrill's hellspawn, you know..." He gestured. "Yeah. You know."

Though neither he nor Merrill had heard it in the madness, Declan looked up when another horn answered in the fog and then another. "She can't move yet, Varric. We need five minutes before she's recovered enough to move at speed, at least three before she can even walk."

"I don't think we've got it, Hawke." Varric cast his gaze around. "Can you carry her?"

"I won't be able to help you in a running fight..."

"Don't worry, big guy. Bianca and I should be able to handle it."

Declan nodded. He hoisted Merrill in his arms like a babe. "Any idea where we're going?"

Varric grinned. "Do we ever have one?"

"Good point." They set out at a trot, but needn't have bothered. Four more groups of a dozen men-at-arms, all wearing the black and crimson livery of Starkhaven, appeared at the mouths of the streets and alleyways. They milled, wary and uncertain about attacking the group of three who had reduced a squad of their friends to nothing more than red mulch.

The four commanding sergeants, after a short conference between them, decided that taking these particular curfew breakers alive was not going to be in the realm of realistic possibility. These men were guilty, also, of consorting with an obvious maleficar and could only be put to the blade. The two squads at their flanks began advancing, while those at the rear and front held steady.

Declan and Varric looked at one another and shrugged. shrugged. "Andraste's everloving ovaries," Varric said. "Hawke, Daisy just spread these idiots' friends halfway to Wycombe!"

"They don't know when to quit, Varric, but I've never known lads from Starkhaven to be particularly quick on the uptake, have you?"

"Nah. It's all the gung-wangling they do with their sheep," Varric said. "It does something to their brains."

"Really?" Declan's eyes grew wide. "I thought it was the fung-bongling they did with the druffalo?"

Merrill, still breathing heavily, seemed as confused by all this as the Starkhaveners. "Elgar'nan and Mythal be good to me, will someone tell me what that even means!" She pouted. "I get so confused without Isabela around to explain these things to me." In spite of their situation, neither Declan nor Varric could stop cackling. They set to set to work. They'd faced impossible odds before, faced down Meredith and a First Enchanter who'd become drunk on blood, even taken part in the killing of a high dragon at the Bone Pit. This wasn't exactly out of their field of expertise. Sure things hadn't looked quite that bad then--there were warriors and mages to hand, to confuse, inveigle, obsfucate and just plain act as meat shields--but bullies were bullies and they were the Champion of Kirkwall and Varric Tethras, damn it.

Varric and Bianca let a few bolts fly, and as many men fell, and when they closed in too tightly began to work do the bloody work with her serrated bayonet, dancing in and out under swords, around shields and even between men's legs. Declan peppered a few with arrows, and then wove a net of onxy protection around Merrill with his Shards of the Fallen. They ripped flesh and leather where they found it, skittered across mail and drove its wearers back where they did not.

She, for her part, could not risk another explosive burst of blood magic lest her soul be dragged shrieking into the abyss along with everything in the city and perhaps the Free Marches. She settled for gathering a little lyrium, instead, and loosing an entropic cloud of horror on the men attacking them. Hideous visions, perhaps of even the things from the furthest reaches of the Fade that she'd called on before, seemed to appear as full bodied apparitions among them, roaring, stalking, sweeping their ferocious claws and stamping their feet. One even lifted another of the monsters by its leg, ripped the smaller demon apart and started to chew contentedly on the pieces. Merrill found this little embellishment a particularly satisfying illusion, especially when she saw the effect it had on their attackers.

It broke merry chaos, for a moment. Men milled and ran. Varric and Declan swept in behind, hamstringing or slashing deep into fleeing backs, but when the demons did no more than posture the soldiers regained their composure and pressed the attack.

It was not enough; none of it proved enough. It was a shame, Varric thought, that their inside mission to reclaim Kirkwall should end this way, but at least it had the makings of one hell of a song... if Leliana or Maryden ever found enough of them to sing it. The Champion and his friends stood back to back and drew up for a final stand.


	10. THE COPPER MARIGOLD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Declan, Merrill and Varric meet Kirkwall's resistance leader and a few old friends.

Varric's chest rose and fell heavily, in time to his rapid breathing. He'd lived a full life often troublesome to those in power, across forty-one years, had given plenty of thought to how it might end and usually come to the conclusion that it would be violently. There'd been plenty of evidence to support that position, after all. The Deep Roads, with Bartrand, had probably been the most ironic example. He was a Surfacer, born and bred, with no Stone sense at all. He'd never felt the deep places pulling at him, had barely even managed to keep his head from swimming while he stumbled from chamber to chamber in the Primeval Thaig. It was probably, upon later reflection, the opposite of an Orzammar native's reaction to the sky--all that earth hanging overhead, suspended by nothing but tradition and goodwill.

During the battle with the Arishok's forces, he had never really felt in danger so much as frustrated and infuriated. He could have died during the fighting, sure, but he'd never really thought much about it. Mostly because it had not had to happen If so many things had gone differently. If Rivaini--Maker lover her but damn the woman's selfish, capricious nature--had made a few decisions differently at some point in her life. If the Arishok or Rasaan had been a little more like Bull at least pretended to be, flexible enough to bend a little instead of stiffer than the horns jutting from their heads, then things could have been so different all around. But they were as interested in revenge as Isabela was theft. It was comforting, in some low way, to know that Qunari were as susceptible as anyone else to those little vices that kept life worth living.

The high dragon at the Bone Pit massacre had probably been the most exciting time he was sure of dying. The beast, he hadn't been sure then but was now convinced after studying Frederic of Serault's disseration she was the breeding mother to a clutch of Vinmark Thunderwalkers, stretched more than a proud hundred feet from snout to tail and had thrown even the implacable Aveline Hendyr across the battle field. He and Declan had faced down the odds and slain her, not just chased her away from civilization like Mischa, and both still wore belts, boots, gloves and jackets made from the near impenetrable hide of a high dragon. When the light danced across them right splinters of red, gold and green screamed from the scales. They made a pretty handsome pair in the sunlight.

The Gallows Courtyard... some things didn't even seem right to think about.

This, though, didn't seem right. Surrounded by a bunch of a mooks from Starkhaven? This was your basic mob. This wasn't how heroes died. A sword thrust escaped his desperate dancing, laned between glove and sleeve, cut deep into the muscle of Varric's forearm. He felt the hand start to go dead. He amended his observation. This wasn't how heroes were supposed to die. Anyone could die at pretty much any time, he reckoned, even slipping on their way back from the john in the middle of the night. Given that, being surprised by superior numbers while exhausted by a long, arduous journey, didn't seem so unrealistic. He sighed and parried a sword with Bianca's bayonet. It wouldn't have flown with his readers at all, one bit. Still, as far as deaths went, it wasn't the worst. Back to back with friends, fighting as hard as you could before going down. Yeah. That was the kind of death a guy could really get behind. It wasn't as good as "eighty-five years of age, beer in one hand, cute girl's ass in the other," but... when the hell had the Maker said we always got what we wanted?

Blood splashed Varric's face. He winced, expecting that Declan or Merrill had finally gone down, but found to his surprise that the Starkhaven soldiers had started catching a bad plague of "arrows in the back." They fell, a field of mown wheat in black and crimson now trimmed with wet scarlet. When the slaughter was complete, a slim figure sauntered from an alley's mouth, between two buildings. A dwarf, shorter than Varric but considerably broader, strolled beside her. Others of varied race and background peered from around corners and lamp-posts. She slung the recurve, red cedar Fereldan shortbow that Declan had taught her to use, had brought with him from Lothering, over one shoulder, and waggled her fingers. "Hey there, handsome."

Declan hauled himself to his feet. "Athenril! You're a sight for sore eyes."

She scowled. "That's a really low blow, Declan... or hadn't you noticed?"

In the overwhelming rush of joy at not dying, none of them had. At some point between the battle for the Gallows and now her pretty, finely boned face had come into contact with something far sharper than itself. She wore an indigo silk patch--her infirmity, at least, matched her gang's colors--but it couldn't cover three deep, furrowed scars or that half the ear on that side had been torn away. She had a queer, lopsided appearance that came off as both maniacal and sinister, two things she'd never even seemed a little bit before, but in that moment Varric would have nominated her for Paragon. Funny how not dying horribly could change your aesthetics.

Declan made sure Merrill was on her feet whole, and took a step forward. "Maker's breath, Ril, I'm sorry. You're a... sight for sore eye, then? That's appropriate. We can't go about all uncivilized, here... in the middle of a great, heaping pile of dead men."

She tried to keep her glare intact but burst into giggles, instead. "Ah, Declan... that's why I kept you around. You were bollocks at smuggling--too likely to give all my profits to the urchins--but Andraste's ass you could always make me laugh."

"I doubt," Declan said, "that my little sister being a primal mage of ridiculous power had anything at all to do with your decision."

"Nothing at all, smuggler's honor." She gave the Carta high sign and he offered a Coterie counter. She broke finally and threw her arms around Declan's neck. She squeezed him tight. "It's good to have you back, salroka. Things have been crazy around these parts."

"And let me guess," Varric said, "Kirkwall needs its big, bad Champion to set things right, again." He spat on a dead Starkhaven sergeant's bloody face. "Freakin' figures. You people won't quit pulling at him until he's six months burned."

The dwarf standing beside Athenril grunted. "If he's the Champion then he bloody well needs to act the part. Kirkwall's dying, duster, and if that half-mad prince gets his hand gripped tight enough around them then the rest of the Marches will, too."

"And who might you be, 'duster'?"

He offered the Merchant Guild's bobbing bow. "Eric Cadash. In overseeing some business concerns from Ostwick when these nug-sucking assholes show up and Hightown's overrun before the Guard can hop off the crapper. Ril's been sweet enough to put me up, as long as I knife a few of the bastards for her." He kicked a dead man's ribs. "That hasn't been a bloody big problem, I promise."

"Hello, hello, all," Merrill said. She stepped forward to join them. "Nice to meet you, people who saved us, angry dwarf, woman hugging my husband, hello." Athenril let her arms drop. "Nice to meet you, I really mean it." Merrill drew a few heavy breaths, reconsidered the wisdom of speech so soon after expending so much of herself, and then pushed on. "As wonderful as all these greetings are, though, and as badly as we need to know what's going on, maybe we should get somewhere a little bit less in the, you know, wide and naked open to discuss them." She cast her gaze around. "We just killed half a hundred fellows, rather noisily, you know. Someone will come to investigate, and they will be prepared for most anything up to and including a high dragon. So... if it's all the same to you all..."

Eric laughed like rocks clashing. "I like you, girl. Never had much use for elves, before these past couple of months, the melancholy shits, but I might be changing my mind."

"Husband..." Athenril tugged the stump of her right ear. "Sounds like you got yourself a smart wife, Declan." She grinned. "I always figured you'd marry up in the world."

Varric shrugged. "We don't know how Merrill puts up with him, really. She's Mythal and Andraste all rolled into one."

Athenril looked the small woman up and down. "She'd have to be, to tame that big southern savage." She winked at Hawke. "Come on, guys. We'll walk and talk. I want to fill you in about some of the things that have been going on, around here, and there are some people that you need to meet."

They listened to her tell how the Prince of Starkhaven's forces had arrived with the Waking Sea mist one morning, filtering through the Vinmark passes to surround the city with fire and the sword. Kirkwall lacking a viscount and standing army, as it did, things couldn't have been called a "siege" or "conquest" so much as an occupation. Lord Vael had ensconced himself in the viscount's palace before nightfall of the first day and many of Hightown's merchants and other quality had even shown up to fete him, remembering the young noble's exquisite sense of manners and exploits with their lost but well-loved Champion.

"More fools them," Eric growled. "Thought he wouldn't fuck the flow of trade up too bad if they fought over who got to go down on him first." He shook his shaggy, red head. "One thing my dad always said... 'Don't mix your politics and your business; the former always robs the latter to pay for her jewels, and damn but that bitch has some expensive tastes.' Old Orzammar proverb, I think."

Varric nodded. "I heard Bartrand say the same thing a few times... when he was feeling particularly maudlin about home, you understand."

"Huhn. Yeah, I heard Orzammar can be that kind of place. Never been, myself." He wiped his nose; the night air, cooler than it was even a little further north in Ostwick, had been playing hell with his sinuses. "Dad wasn't much, probably why Mom sent him off to the Conclave and didn't cry too much when he got blew back to the Ancestors or to the Maker or wherever Surfacers go but... he got off a good one, from time to time."

The party moved swiftly though hushed streets, Athenril's runners keeping to the foggy sides, rooftops above, sewers below. When they crossed out of the Docks and into Darktown, everyone relaxed. It was probably the only time in recorded Kirkwall history that Varric could ever think of such a thing occurring. Athenril leaned on a piling to get her breath, thought better of it, and leaned on Eric instead. "So that's the long and short of it. Our lord high prince of purity rules Hightown pretty convincingly, and Darktown is where our resistance leader holes up in a little tavern for dog lords called the Grimoire and Marquis."

"They keep mostly out of each other's territory and fight like cats in a sack over Lowtown. He rules it mostly during the day, and she has a tenuous graps of the foundries and alleys after dark. Those little orange flowers you keep seeing?" Athenril pointed to one of the tags, etched on the slimy splinters where she'd first rested. "That's her tag. Folks call her 'the Copper Marigold.' Lots of former Guards and the like fighting for her, so they make a pretty good showing of it."

Varric and Declan shared a glance, strained to keep it in, and then burst into helpless laughter. Athenril glared. "What? Is our distress somehow amusing to you, oh heroes? I know that we're not fighting possessed Wardens bodily in the thrice Maker damned Fade, here, but we take it pretty seriously hereabouts."

"Ah, no... peace, Ril, Maker's breath, peace..." Declan, doubled over and leaning on his knees, managed to contain himself and stand up straight. "It's just... we happen to know your resistance leader quite well. And of all the names she could have picked..." He laughed again. "Oh, Maker be good."

Eric grunted. "Sounds like there's a story in this, somewhere."

"Oh there is, and a half." Varric said. "Believe me, and it's worth hearing, even if not right this minute. And believe this, too; Choir Boy couldn't have a worse nemesis, up to and including Declan, Warden Brosca and Mischa Trevelyan all together. I'm actually starting to feel sort of sorry for him." He chuckled and tugged his chest hair. "Ah, Andraste's tits, though... copper freaking marigolds, once again."

Merrill pondered a moment, stroked her chin, and said. "I think it's lovely, myself, and that you two shouldn't make such fun." She smiled. "I'm glad that Aveline has found something nice to do, during all this sound and fury. She always did need lots of hobbies and things, you know, to keep her busy."

"This is the one that hit those Starkhaveners with that Fade summoning?" Eric said. "For real?"

"Yeah," Varric said. "Daisy's a real treasure--one of a kind. Or at least we hope so, since we're not really sure how we'd handle any more."

Athenril tugged her good ear, again. It seemed to be a nervous habit. "I'm beginning to think that one smart-ass dwarf might have been my limit." She glanced around. "Any chance of you guys being ready to get on the move again? The Grimoire and Marquis is close by. We should make it in a minute or two. Like I said, the Prince's men usually stay well the hell away from Darktown--especially at night--but you folks have made a lot of noise and attracted a lot of attention."

Declan agreed with her, so they got a move on. He asked, while they were walking, where she stood in the scheme of things. "Your business is smuggling, after all. That can be lucrative in a city at war, if you happen to be smuggling to the right people. Which, if you haven't noticed, you don't seem to."

She shrugged. "I'm a patriot, I guess, and you know I hate the hell out of those Hightown bastards--no offense. So I work with the Marigold, using my organization to make sure that the docks stay clear enough, at least at night, to help blockade runners offload food from Highever and West Hill. I get it off the boats, and she makes sure that the bellies of little kids don't go to bed unfilled from Lowtown to the Alienage."

"If the natural order seems to be offended by all this, smugglers being altruistic and shit," Eric said, "I was here to secure lyrium shipping through Kirkwall's carta. She's the hero, here; I'm greedy and just want to get home to my wife and kids alive."

"After tonight..." Athenril scrubbed her short, coppery hair. "I hope we can even move on the docks without one of the Prince's mages coming down on us like a hammer. We might have to borrow the Marigold's pet enchantress..."

Declan's brow furrowed. "Pet enchantress...?

"For her to tell, salroka. My lips are sealed."

"Fair enough," he said. "Have you heard anything Gamlen Amell?"

"Oh..." Athenril said. "Him."

"I take it he's alive?"

"Grand vizier to the little fiefdom that Meeran and his Red Iron have set up in the Gallows Courtyard." She chuckled. "I can't say much for any of them, but they do keep a couple hundred of the Starkhaveners busy enough that they're not kicking our asses for at least a few minutes of of the day." They pulled to a stop at the sign of the Grimoire and Marquis. It showed a crudely scrawled Orlesian nobleman, masked and feathered, clutching a ragged old volume.

"Small favors," Varric murmured.

"You aren't wrong." She hammered on the door three times, then rapped twice with her knuckles in rhythm.

A gruff voice called from within. "Three goats and a sheaf of wheat."

Athenril rolled her eyes. "Take them to his mother." Declan and Varric, again, struggled to remain upright against gales of laughter. This was not, she reflected, the sort of serious, intimidating image that one desired for one's rebel underground but... for a leader like the Marigold, all the earnest silliness in the world was worth it.

The door opened a crack. They pushed through into a dimly lit room. The only sources of illumination were low lamps lit at the few occupied tables; greasy flames danced in them against the backdrop of sooty walls. There were haggard fighters, members of the Guard, mostly, but Varric recognized a shopkeeper here and there, including the poison mixer Tomwise and the Blooming Rose's waitress Viveka. Sergeant Maecon, a tall Rivaini and one of Aveline's best men, if memory served, stood behind the bar, polishing a tankard and very conspicuously not paying attention to the proceedings. The low buzz of conversation stopped. They turned to face the party, faces tense, hands close to the hilts of swords, axes, maces and even table knives.

Varric raised his hands. "Easy, folks, easy... we come in peace."

"That's a hard bought commodity, these days, Varric." Aveline shambled out of a back room, in front of a hooded figure. Always a big woman, weeks of lean living had left her with a gaunt, predatory look. Shadows hung under her eyes, around her cheekbones and mouth, and strands of silvery white had begun to streak her long, blazing hair.

Declan stepped forward to meet her. "You're a sight for sore eyes, Captain. I'd say you look good but... I think you might have looked better after the Blight."

She snorted. "Only you, Hawke."

The figure behind her, a stunning woman or very oddly shaped man if Varric had been forced to judge by the way its brilliant blue robe moved, manuevered out of her shadow and threw its hood back to reveal another familiar face. "You're going to have to be specific, Aveline. He's not the only Hawke around, you know."

Declan's face lit up beneath his bright, Korcari facial tattoos. Smile burning brighter than any lantern in the room, he ran forward to engulf his sister in a crushing embrace. "Maker's breath, Bethany, it's good to see you. It's good to see all of you, bad as it is to say so under the circumstances. Did you get my letter?"

"Yes, Declan." She kissed his cheek. "You sentimental idiot, what if one of Sebastian's wards had brought the bird down? We could have been in real trouble."

"She says that," Aveline muttered, "as if things were a real delight as they stand."

"Oh, I don't know..." Merrill said. "I think this hideout of yours could be lovely. Just... wipe the walls off a bit. And the floors. And tables. And ceilings. Possibly burn the whole place down and rebuild it."

Aveline almost chuckled, in spite of herself, and managed to turn it into a disgusted snort, instead. Varric marveled, not for the first time, at how similar Cassandra and her "Knight-Captain" really were. If only the two could be gotten together in the same room, this war would be over in minutes.

Nah, he thought... that would be like getting an Archdemon to chase the fox away from your nug hutch. It sounded awesome in theory, maybe, but would only end up in tragedy and a whole hell of a lot of squealing. "What I mean," Bethany said, "is that Sebastian doesn't know I'm here."

"Why is that important, Sunshine?"

"The best kind of weapon," Bethany said, "is one that your enemy doesn't even conceive of you having. If he thinks that the most magic Aveline can muster is Tomwise's grenades and a few hedge apostates, then when I open a rift under his toys and drop the Maker's Hammer it comes as a big surprise... especially if we can pull it off in a way that looks like it was done through explosives and sabotage. If he knew that there was a high level enchantress working against him..." She shrugged. "His people could take steps."

If Declan was at all concerned about his sister experimenting with the new, wildly unstable school known as rift magic, he managed to hide it pretty well. Varric approved of her audacity and was sure, if what he'd heard about the man was at all accurate, that Malcolm Hawke would have too. In spite of the little tightening around his eyes, that only Varric and Merrill might have been close enough to him apart from his sister to notice, Declan managed to say, "As long as you're hitting him where it hurts, I suppose."

"Oh, we are. Trust me." Her huge, dark eyes burned in the low light. "It's been hard on magic users, Declan, like it hasn't been since we faced down Mad Meredith in the Gallows."

"Hard on everyone," Athenril said. She was perched on the edge of a table, nursing a tankard of bitter ale. "Especially if you're the kind that hangs out at the edges, living on the margins of society, the Starkhaven ideal isn't super great for you. From the Rose to the Hanged Man, it's been rough."

"What happened there?"

"It was one of Sebastian's first initiatives," Aveline said. "Clean up Hightown, move the Rose out. It was supposed to go smoothly, just roust them and set up a billet for his officers in the building. You know that nothing ever goes smoothly."

"It's an eternal law," Varric said.

"In spite of their orders to the contrary--our old friend is still himself, despite being my enemy now I must say that his principles haven't changed--some of the Starkhaven men decided to claim prizes from among the workers--Katriela and Cerimon, in specific, were in the process of getting hauled upstairs to some lieutenant's quarters when all hell broke loose. Someone had a thing, I think, for elves."

"We're just lucky that way," Athenril said. "Folks can't decide if they love us or hate us. Sometimes they go for both at once."

"Maker's breath," Declan said. "Those folks need help. Are they still there or...?"

"Oh, no," Aveline said. "You misunderstand, Declan. When I say all hell broke loose, I mean it. Two of Lucine's men, Leonato and Osric, started to fight back but were cut down for their trouble--just merciless, merciless killing." She almost spat the words. "Not because they had to, just because they could. Things went upside down for the Starkhaveners, though, when one of them took a handful of my Guardsmen Brennan and Melindra. They had been in the Rose on 'business,' you see, or that's what they told me. I think they may have had business with Denier and Adriano, but regardless their reasons for being there I'm glad they were. The Rose is not my kind of place, you know that but..." She struggled for the right thing to say. "It is of us--of Kirkwall. I can't stand to think of Kirkwallers treated like that by outsiders."

She heaved a deep breath. "Brennan and Melindra began to lay about themselves as soon as they could get their hands around a sword and apparently..." She grinned like a death's head. "Men with their pants around their ankles already don't fight well. They cut their way free in record time, made sure the rest of the workers got out and then stormed through the streets--Mel still in her lace teddy and Bren stark naked, mind you, both soaked in blood--crying death and damnation on the wicked." She chuckled. "My girls. Your old friend, Jethann, acquitted himself well, too."

Declan's ears perked up. "The one who aided me in the Ninette de Carrac matter?"

"The same," Athenril said. "I wouldn't have said much for the little fellow before that day, myself, but apparently he was instrumental in organizing his fellow 'Roses in Bloom' behind the Guardsmen's flying steel and making sure they found their way out the door. He joined our war effort that very night."

"Is he still here?"

Aveline grimaced. "I'm sorry, Declan, but he fell fighting outside the Hanged Man, a few nights ago. Madame Lucine has set up inside, with Corff, some kind of joint venture until all this is over, and when Jethann heard that some of the same Starkhaveners were on their way to make trouble, again, he volunteered to lead a party against them. They beat them back, but he died in the fighting."

"Sorry state of affairs, a gentle-hearted lad like that fighting at all," Declan said. "Have they left the Hanged Man alone, since then?"

"Indeed they have, brother," Bethany said. "You know how I told you that Sebastian, for all this, is still very much Sebastian?"

"Yes. What do you..."

"The ringleaders were dancing on a high gibbet, the next morning, and further 'enterprise' banned on pain of death."

"Couldn't have happened to nicer guys," Varric said. "So... since we don't like this state of affairs for Kirkwall as a whole... what's our plan for making a change? I assume that the reason we snuck into the city was that we might be able to get to Choir Boy and, well, if anyone could convince him to call his dogs off it would be one of you Hawkes."

"Yes," Bethany said. "One of us could definitely persuade him, one way or another."

Varric wasn't sure how he felt about the cold fury in her voice, how it contrasted with the huge, doe eyes. He let matters stand where they would, for now, to see where they might fall later. He said, instead, "That still leaves us with the problem of even getting in to see him before we can..." He glanced at Declan. "So we can persuade him. I imagine that we're not going to just saunter up to the front gate of the viscount's palace, cry hail and well met and then wait to be invited in for a conference."

"That does seem unlikely," Merrill said. "Plus I've never cried hail or well met. I don't know if I'd be any good at it."

"Luckily, if any of this miserable excuse for a year can be said to be lucky," Aveline said, "I may have an answer. There is a tunnel between the palace and a warehouse in the Alienage, leading directly up into the viscount's chambers. It's cut into the cliff's guts, leading up to Hightown, and was undoubtedly put there because one of our previous viscount's had... proclivities... in that direction."

"It's the funniest thing," Merrill said. "Not funny comical, you know, but just odd. I mean, for oppressed and downtrodden wretches we are just impossibly popular, aren't we?"

"It's the eyes, sweetheart," Athenril said. "Or so they say in Orlais." She poked out her tongue, a gesture so reminiscent of Sera that Varric felt homesick for Skyhold. "'An elf-maid's eyes, moonlight on Halamshiral, love newly awoke in spring.' That's the bards' triplet for things that are sparkly and alluring. So... I guess I'm only half-alluring, now. That's nice."

Aveline pursed her lips. "Right. In any event, I have a contact in the Alienage--Lia, Elren's daughter."

"I remember her," Varric said. "The girl we saved from Kelder. Those... proclivities... again. She made it as a Guard?"

"A corporal patrolling the Alienage," Aveline said. An unmistakable hint of pride beamed in her voice and for an instant it softened to the musical, Fereldan lilt she only felt comfortable speaking with around friends. "One of my children, of my soul if not my body. She can get us to the passage. There could be only one problem."

"And that is...?"

"We'll have to negotiate with the Ghost."


	11. WINTERSEND

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blackwall, Josie and a few other friends new and old get to spend the holiday together.

Sera rubbed her arms, still chilly in spite of her plaid jacket's thin sleeves, with hands wrapped in fingerless mittens made of soft halla leather. She hopped from one foot to the other, a trick that had worked more than once in Wildervale to keep her from freezing to bloody death, and shivered, teeth chattering. Her companion, the huge Avvar known as Amund the Sky Watcher, leaned the crossguard of his long, broad, red steel great sword, the Lost Soul. Though he stood nearly seven feet tall, its pommel rested on one grizzled creek. Sera couldn't understand how he could stand the cold metal against tender flesh like your face, but then figured hell... an Avarr like ol' Watcher probably didn't have meat much tenderer than jerky anywhere on him. He chuckled at her. "Is that a dance in honor of your god, little Daleling, or are you trying to summon the rain?"

"It's not a dance, and I'm not a Daleling. I'm just trying to keep the cold off me, yeah?" Sera blew a raspberry. "And it better not rain. I feel like my eyelids are gonna fuggin' freeze shut as things are."

"You have been weeks in Wildervale, Sera," Amund said. "It is colder than this. How did you manage there?"

"There were trees to keep the wind off," she said, "and always Bull or Dorian to cuddle with, if I was about to shiver my bones to friggin' pieces. Here I've got nothing but a sandy stretch of road, a hovel off to the side of it and a bloody frigid wind, whipping off the Waking Sea. And you. In your jacket. That smells of goats." She huffed. "I could murder a hot Antivan fish chowder, right now."

"My jacket once was a goat, and I, too, have been ranging for a time. My people have been stationed in the Vinmark Mountains, making sure no baggage passes between Starkhaven and her Prince's army in Kirkwall." He rolled his huge shoulders, one after another. Each one cracked. "It's been a long time, fighting up there. My Lady's face is different than she is in the Frostbacks or at Skyhold. I have not gotten used to her Vinmark flavored speech, so I do not hear her as well."

"Well, it's not crazy if ye talk to the sky," Sera said, "just if it, y'know, answers you back. Which I reckon it does for you, so never mind." She winced at the crackling noise in his joints. "Ugh. Bloody awful, that."

He smiled. "I broke them both, wrestling a great bear when I was a young man."

Sera's green eyes grew huge and bright. "One of those big suckers from the Emerald Graves? For serious? Fuckin' A, right on, mate."

He smiled. "No, not really. It was wrestling, yes, but just another Avvar lad from Hosferth Hold. We fought to impress a girl, one of our clan's fairest maids with snowy skin and flaming hair, but it grew more serious than that. I ended up with wounded shoulders, he with cracked ribs."

"And I bet neither of you got to kiss the girl, yeah?"

"No, another lad snuck in behind us--conniving little wretched called Movran." He laughed. "I was probably lucky, to be honest. There is truth to our old saying, that red haired women burn your heart in bed."

"For true, not for play this time?"

"For true in your heart, sweet Sera." He winked a grey eye at her. "Janar's daughter won't leave you a smoking corpse, though she may leave the marks of her nails on your soul. Always beware, my dear, always beware a red-haired woman."

"Heh, shows what you know, then, mate... won't even take your own weird arse advice." She giggled. "I see you looking at Sister Nightingale, time to time, wondering what kind of pretty music that you two might make. She's all kinds of red-haired crazy. No cheeky little Movran to sneak in and toss a goat in your path this time, the trouble's all yours to get into."

Amund spoke in his infuriatingly even manner. "I don't have any idea what you could even possibly be rambling about."

"Yeah, I just bet you don't, at that."

He raised his nose, was apt to drown if it started raining, Sera thought. "I'll consult the Lady of the Skies. It might be she'll translate your mad ranting for me."

"I dunno. Maybe." Sera adjusted her mittens and fidgeted with indifferently trimmed bangs. "When's Blackie gonna show up? What in hell's he want us out here at the arse end of where sea meets sky for, anyway?"

"He'll be here in his own time, Sera," Amund said. "And he kept his reasons to himself. Just know that they are important to him and, as those chosen to share in them, so are we. I believe we have been called for a debt of flesh, blood and bone."

"Ugh," Sera said. She pulled a face. "Sounds a mite... y'know... sticky, like. I could have done right without that." At this, Amund thew his head back and shared a secret, roaring laugh with his Lady of the Skies. Sera just scowled and resumed her hopping, struggling against the knifing wind to keep warm.

Blackwall arrived less than a quarter of an hour later with his standard bearer, a handsome young woman from his complement of chevaliers-errant. Both sat astride sturdy, Free Marches Rangers, roan and bay, and wore stiff brigandines of scutted leather with finely woven mesh at the sleeves and throat instead of the heavy armor of their station. Blackwall had tamed his wild tangle of dark hair and even trimmed his beard. It made the strings of silver in them more pronounced, which for some reason that she could not elucidate tugged at the strings of her heart, but on the whole Sera found herself impressed with him. This must have been an important endeavor, indeed.

His companion nearly took Sera's breath away. She sat tall and lanky in her saddle, relaxed but alert, right hand never far from the pommel of her sword. Wisps of coppery hair poked out from under a leather arming cap. The pale face was pretty, splashed with freckles and boasting a generous mouth made for kissing and smiles, but it also carried a depth of sadness and melancholy that tore Sera's gaze away from the large, arresting green eyes. She remembered that these were Orlesian chevaliers-errant, and judging by the lute strapped to her saddle this one must have been a bard. That explained it; bards had a bad habit of getting all wormy on you. Look at Maryden, Sera thought, or maybe better don't if you don't want a creepy odd song wrote about you.

They dismounted, Blackwall with more grace than could be reasonably asked from a man his size and age, his companion with all that Sera expected of her and more. She planted Blackwall's standard. Sera had never seen it, knowing him only to fight under Mischa's gold on red emblem of the Inquisition's sun and sword, but found it striking all the same. A rain grey representation of the constellation Judex, fixed on a sable field and flanked by gleaming, golden wings. She wondered if any of the imagery was from his previous life, as Thom Ranier, and then disregarded the notion. Ranier was a arse-magister, dead and gone. The wings were griffon wings, showed Blackie's love for the Wardens so long adulated and his mentor, Judex a sign of his dedication to justice for the little folks and friends. There was no Ranier in it, just Blackie. Sera smiled at the notion.

He ambled across the sand and wrapped her in a hug that made her ribs creak. "I'm happy to see you too, little one. Have Dorian and the Bull been treating you well up in Wildervale."

She squeezed him back, squeaked when the embrace grew too tight, and landed lightly on her feet when he put her down, warmer than she'd felt in days. "We're good, mostly, and do good. Mostly. Just, y'know, fucking shit up with friends, like."

He noticed a tightness around her mouth and bright, green eyes, but let it pass. If she wanted to talk about this, she would. Instead of pressing the issue, he greeted Amund with the clasping of forearms common to the Avvar--Sera was steeped enough in the world of Ferelden to know that it was called the Tribesman's Grasp--and introduced his standard bearer as Ser Alys Dorin du Val Chevin, freshly graduated from La Academie and already a terror with a blade in her hand. He explained briefly how she had been granted the honor of bearing her commander's standard:

"She, our Templar Ser Roger Merk, her paramour, Ser Maddieu Wells, and ten squires were set upon during evening patrol by a group of rogue spellbinders more powerful than any of the Tantervale soldiers that we'd been encountering. More than one of them decided that becoming an abomination was preferable to even negotiating with a group of knights that included a Templar, and a fight began in earnest."

He drew a deep breath and went on. "Ser Roger took a wound to his thigh that has left him crippled, unable to fight on foot or walk but still able to sit his horse, at least, and purge magic. Ser Maddieu fell to their claws in only an instant, as he had been the first to offer his hand in friendship and boldest in attack, leaving him closest to those changed. Alys stayed with him, an unyielding bulwark against their onslaught, because she was unwilling to let a friend's body be despoiled by those driven mad or Ser Roger to be finished. We found her ringed by the dead, cradling poor Maddy's head in her lap, fierce as Dame Aveline and gentle as Andraste." He bumped her shoulder, with his big fist. "I decided that moment that if anyone had ever deserved to undergo a champion's training, it was her."

"Tough break, yeah," Sera said. "But at least you got to fuck their shit up. Not all get even that lucky."

She shrugged. "That's what they tell me, that I fucked their shit up. I just know I woke up and everyone was dead but Ser Roger and me. I get cold at night, now, must sleep near the fire for fear of the dark, and cannot bring myself to play my lute or sing. I know the notes, still, know the words, but the music remains locked inside me. Perhaps one day it will welter forth."

Sera said nothing else because she knew very well that there wasn't anything to say. It was patently obvious, to anyone with half a brain, why Aly-poo had gotten the honor of being right the fuck by Blackie's side at all times; too easy for her to find some heroic way to fall on a bloke's sword, otherwise, or just on her own or off a cliff. Too easy. She could read it in the warp and weft of lines etched on the other woman's face. That's why Blackie was a good man, not at all like some Thom Ranier bloke. He took care of people, big or small, was practically a friend. Maybe even was a friend, Sera amended, if not a proper one. The notion felt heavy on her heart and big in her head, pressing up against the sides, so she pushed it away and asked, "Now that we've seen your pretty flag and met Ser Miss Bad-arse Redhead you can tell me what we're out here doing, then, hey?"

"You're here to witness something for me, Sera, something that called for the eyes and ears of at least three people that I cared about deeply.

She stuck out her tongue. "I've been a witness before. Didn't care for it. Bloke bopped some other with a bottle of the good stuff, right outside the Pearl, when I was just a wee little bugger nipping pennies out of pockets. Guard collared me, dragged me off to the Justicar's palace and kept me for three days before making me tell 'em what I saw--which was nothing, which is what a smart girl always saw." She fidgeted. "Ugh. Being a witness is stupid. Least they fed me."

"I've stood in front of a Justicar or two in my time, too, Sera," Blackwall said. "Don't worry. It's not that kind of witnessing I had in mind."

"Oh. Good. Cause I'd have been right the fug off cutting mud up that trail, if so. Fast. Still wouldn't mind it if you fed me."

"We'll get to that in a bit," Blackwall said. "We brought along some provisions and Alys is a fine camp cook. But now..." A gleaming grin split his dark beard. "Our guest of honor is arriving."

The familiar hum of one of Solas' artificial rifts, focused through the Forbidden Oasis crystals and sustained by his and Your Trainer's more than sensibly intricate eldritch engineering, burrowed into the ears of all present like a cruel, persistent insect. Sera began to feel a little sorry for all those she'd thrown her bee filled jars at. A flood of pale, green light followed, soft first then brighter than the distant, morning sun, and a quartet of figures stepped clear of its ring before the illumination faded back into the Veil.

Josephine Montilyet and three family retainers, two soldati and a lady-in-waiting, stood on momentarily wobbly legs before steadying themselves and approaching the group. Sera recognized Aurelio and Carlo, from Blackie's duel against Adorno in Lydes, but the lady-in-waiting was just some Antivan girl to her. She looked a bit like Josie with long hair in loose, waving curls and Sera bet that her nut brown skin would have been softer than silk. All dressed in the height of fashion, wearing House Montilyet's colors of gold and midnight, all handsome and full of grace. It would have been a sight truly indimidating in its grandeur had Josie not defused the whole matter with a smile more radiant than the cold, far off sun. "You never do get quite use to traveling through Solas' rifts, do you?"

"No, indeed," Amund said. "I would have hiked all the way here if I'd had a few more days." He shuddered. "There are things that scratch at the walls of the elf's tunnel through the Fade. They sense us moving through it and hunger."

Josie raised an eyebrow. "That I could have done without knowing. Watcher, you are terrible at small talk."

He shrugged. "I am terrible at small anything, little falcon."

She giggled. "I cannot see why you would ever say that." Her eyes, huge, dark and glimmering, caught Blackwall's and it was actually possible to see a pair of hearts leap into throats. Sera stood amazed at Josie's discipline, at his, how they managed to last through polite introductions without leaping into each others arms.

They did, though. Maybe that was why they were heroes and fine folk, Sera figured, or at least finer than her. When she got back to Skyhold she was going to run up to Widdle, snog her on the lips and squeeze the cute little nuglet so hard that her ribs groaned. That was the way of life in the streets or in the Alienage, though. Live today because tomorrow's not a promise, just a mist on a far horizon. She remembered a double wedding, of when she was little, of Kaillian and Soris Tabris. What should have been a happy day, even for forgotten brats in the orphanage, busted apart when Vaughn Kendells and his toughs came around looking for what they always did, what some thought the Alienage was for. Maybe it was, given how most didn't bother fighting back.

Stupid bride did, though, on behalf of her cousin Shianni, and it ended in about as much blood as you'd have expected. Lots of bodies broken on the sand by the dumb tree everyone put so much stock into, lots of tears and not a whole hell of a lot to show for any of it. Shianni was hahren and Bann of the Alienage now (what the hell ever that meant), so Sera guessed she had made good even if she had a half-breed brat trailing along behind her and a few scars on her body, Soris off and married to a human woman and the Tabris woman run off to Ostagar and more than a decade dead. Sera thought of how Solas would react to the thought of not just one but two elven weddings falling apart so profoundly that the result was a passel of human children and couldn't manage to suppress a nasty giggle. The look on his face, oh... 

Alys bumped Sera's shoulder with her elbow. "Something giving you the fits, friend Sera?"

"Nah, mate," she said. "It's too mean to laugh about. Well, you're Orlesian, so maybe not."

Alys couldn't find anything to say to that, so they stood in relatively companionable silence with the younger Montilyet man-at-arms, Carlo, to watch the reunion between Blackwall and Josie. They took each other in their arms and stood there still and silent, for a while, so that Sera thought they might never part. It made a lovely tableau, and formed a nice thought or three, but she really was getting cold out there, in this bloody wind, so it wouldn't have bothered her one bit if they would just, sort of, get a move on with it, if it wasn't too much trouble. She imagined they were in for the long haul, though. With faces that transformed by rapture and an embrace that warm, it would have been shocking to her if they'd even been able to feel the cold gusts, knifing as they were.

Finally Josie, a smile wide as the Waking Sea broken on her face, leaned back from Blackwall and mumured. "Caro, caro, mi amore. It's been too long since I saw your face..." She tugged at his beard. "I think some is missing, no?"

He closed his big hand over her small one. "You don't miss a trick, do you?"

"Well, they don't pay me to be the Inquisition's ambassador for nothing. I'm not quite Leliana but I can't just wander around totally oblivious, can I?"

"I wonder, sometimes." He smiled, even wider than before if possible. "Have you not figured out why I could want you here, on this day in particular?"

She frowned. "I imagined that you just wanted to spend the day with me. It would have been our first Wintersend to spend, together... it's an inauspicious day to be lonely, don't you think?" She worried her lower lip with her teeth. "I can't imagine that you have just called me to tell me that you've cleared the road between Ostwick and Kirkwall--that could have come in a letter, and Lady Trevelyan sent us one to that effect indeed."

"It's not just an inauspicious day to be lonely, Josie. And speaking of letters, yours has offered me great peace of mind."

"Really? I'm glad to hear it but, apart from business matters--and hope though I might that our mercenari could inspire such a peace in you I doubt it sincerely, as Antivans are no great fighters--there wasn't much of interest in my note. Unless you mean..." Her eyes grew wide. "You mean that my family already knew of your identity, don't you? That is why you feel such 'peace of mind,' and whereupon lies the crux of what you needed to tell me." She breathed deeply; he could feel her ribs expand against his chest, her small but well formed breasts pressing against him. "It's not just an inauspicious day to be lonely, indeed."

Sera, near bursting with excitement, jostled Alys, then Carlo, and finally Amund. "Oy, hey. What are they on about? The only other thing I can think of that folks do much of on Wintersend is eat and drink the shit out of the sweetest wine they can turn up... and if that's it I hope one of you brought some cause I am dry as sticks and stones."

"Ser Blackwall and I did, amie," Alys said. "We figured on a Wintersend feast, together, after he and Lady Montilyet took care of their business. It's nothing particularly grand--trail bread, hard cheese, dried meat and a few skins of wine."

"Sun and moonshine by me, mate," Sera said. "I'm happy any day I eat food instead of air."

Beside them, Amund just kept murmuring, "Blood, flesh and bone," under his breath. Sera wondered if the big Avvar had gone off his noggin, but he was smiling almost as wide as Josie and Blackwall so she figured that if he'd gone nug-biting mad at least he was one of the happy kinds.

Blackwall held her close and said. "Since this day is the day that happy matches are made, I ask Lady Josephine Cherette Montilyet di Antiva City if she would do me the honor of being my wife. After all this mess is over, of course."

"Si, Ser Gordon Blackwall of the Grey, Shield of the Inquisitor and Champion of the Inquisition, sicuramente," she said. "After all this is over. We can't have the enormous, ostentatious wedding that we so obviously deserve during a war, can we?"

"No indeed." He chuckled. "I was thinking that it would take at least thirty white Taslin striders to draw our wedding cake."

"Fifty, darling, at least. We cannot appear to be skimping on things like a pair of common rag-pickers, can we?"

"Of course not. Fifty it is, and a high dragon to ride on." Both of them laughed softly. 

He tilted her face up to him and pressed his lips on hers, gently at first but then with more intensity. It seemed to open and bloom, consuming both their bodies down to the feet like a slowly banked fire. They remained interlocked long enough for Sera to wonder if either of them was getting enough air. Yep, she figured, she was definitely going to be out here in this cold-arsed wind for another good little while. At least they were making it warm enough to heat an army. At this rate, she thought, before long I'm going to have to strip down to my underthings so that I don't suffer from sun sickness.

She wondered if Alys was feeling the same, and hoped the young chevalier might also considered dropping trou to avoid the heat. A wicked grin spread across Sera's face; there was just something about redheads, Bully Boy had that right as rain, and this tall drink of water had here wondering if the grass and leaves matched as exactly as she hoped they would and just how far those freckles went.

It seemed like the opportunity to find out wouldn't be coming, or not anytime soon at least, because the thunder of hooves ruptured the tableau. Hands fell to the hilts of swords, or in Sera's case nocked an arrow to her bowstring. The tension drained out of them when they noted the silver and green tabards of Ostwick soldiers and a man riding beside a tall woman who bore the green charger on silver standard of House Trevelyan and Lady Evelyn Trevelyan's personal standard, that same stallion reared onto his hind legs entwined in combat with a wyvern. They wheeled to a halt, horses steaming and pawing. It seemed like the heir to the Trevelyan estates and name had chosen to lead her own vanguard across the Wounded Coast. Of course, Sera reflected, if she was half the handful of trouble that Mischa seemed to think she was then nothing else would have done.

She leapt from the saddle and strode up to them with the bow-legged strut of one more used to riding than walking. The cool, salty wind ruffled long, dark curls, like her brother's, pulled back into a sloppy ponytail. A grin broke across a good natured, horsey face suited well to smiles or scowls. She said, "Damn all your eyes, you must be the folks responsible for clearing out those Tantervale bastards from my father's highway. Good of you to be about that; we only had to mop up a few of the sorry things." She stroked her chin. "Odd group, though. Seems like you'd be better suited to a picnic than fighting a war!"

Blackwall chuckled, and bowed. "We are a picnic, my lady. Gordon Blackwall at your service." He indicated those around him. "Let me also introduce Amund the Sky Watcher, Ser Alys Dorin du Val Chevin, Aurelio, Carlo and Arista in service to House Montilyet and Sera of... well, basically everywhere."

"Yeah," Sera said. "Sort of like the sand on this bloody beach, yeah? I get in all the places you don't want me, specially the larder and your arse crack."

Josie winced, beside Blackwall, but Evelyn threw her head back and howled laughter. "I can damn well imagine you do, Sera. Maker but you're a delight, just like my brother wrote about you."

Sera felt her eyebrows raise. "Delight, yeah?"

"Well, it may have been 'vicious minded little nug that's too clever by half,' but I took it to mean delight. Mischa's an enchanter, you know. They're too thinky and wordy for the likes of women of action like you and me."

"Fuckin' A, Evvy. I think you and I could get along right well." Her boisterous nature reminded Sera just a little bit of Dorian's sanguine outlook, and she remembered that he'd mentioned Houses Trevelyan and Pavus being related through more than one strand.

"I'm sure we could, darling, as long as I put a padlock on my coin purse. But that's for later." She turned back to Blackwall. "Shall I wait for your introduction just assume this ravishing creature beside you is a Wintersend gift for me and make off with her?"

Josephine curtsied and spoke. "I will introduce myself, my lady. I am Josephine Montliyet of House Montilyet, at your service."

"Evelyn Trevelyan of house yeah-blah at yours, I'm sure," she said. "I thought I recognized you, even if you don't me."

Josie's brows drew together. She hated it when she could not place a member of the nobility. It worried at her like a deep stalker's teeth. "I know your reputation, my lady, but I don't think I've had the honor."

"It was years ago, darling, ages, so don't fret over it so. You weren't more than ten or eleven in a ruffled gown--see you haven't grown out of those! It your first presentation in high society at one of my Granty Lucille's interminable costume fetes. I got a glimpse of you and marveled at the cutie with the huge, dark eyes before promptly getting tossed out for fighting, like I always did."

"It is a day of many honors, then," Josie said. "I am pleased to make your formal acquaintance."

"The same, my love, the same." She stretched deeply. Cracks rippled up and down her spine. Sera remembered that at four years north of Mischa's age Evelyn was closing in on forty and, by all indications, had lived most of it hard in the saddle on one mission or another for her father. "Sorry for all that, friends," she said. "Rude of me, I know, but it's been a long ride, today, with little enough fighting to take the edge off it. I need to stretch my legs a moment or two and cram something to eat in my mouth."

"Well," Blackwall said, "my standard-bearer and I brought some food and wine, to celebrate Wintersend and my engagement to Josie. It's not much, really, but you're welcome to share in it."

"Splendid, old fellow!" Evelyn clapped him on the shoulder. "And congratulations to the pair of you! My men and I have a few dried jigots of mutton, with us, and a few casks of beer--can't have a party or a war without beer, damn your eyes. We can settle in and make a celebration of it before setting off tomorrow!"

"Are you sure that will be all right? Kirkwall is--"

"Still standing, darling, last I heard, just as it has been since that bloody Vint Emerius built his City of Chains. Things will hold until tomorrow morning, my friends, and the rest of my men won't be here until then besides." She paused for thought. "Are the rest of your famous chevaliers-errant squared away, Warden?"

He nodded. "Waiting for me to return with Alys, but we can ride them a message to hold still or join us."

"Nonsense, Blackie. I wouldn't think of tearing you away from your blushing bride to be!" Josie's cheeks did, indeed, flush a pretty scarlet at this. "I'll send one of my lads nipping off and we can make this a Wintersend to remember!"

They did, with food, freshly flowing drink and a warm fire against the evening chill. Blackwall and Josie wrapped up in each other to listen to Amund spin a tale from the Winter Song of Korth, of how the Mountain Father had brought his children to the Frostbacks at the dawn of all creation. This prompted a story from Sera, about how she and her friends had once stolen a Wintersend feast pig stuffed with live doves from the table of Florianne de Chalons herself, replacing it with a trough of that pigs leavings from the night before and bearing the beast itself away to feed orphans all over Val Royeaux. The tale was outrageous, hilarious and maybe even true. Finally, before the night was over, even Alys was gently coaxed into singing an old hymn for the night, so ancient that no one could really tell if it was to the Old Gods or the Maker. Her voice rose, pure and clear, above the moaning wind, mixed with its harmony, and brought tears to the eyes of all who heard. And in the midst of the Free Marches, a land cursed by war, those gathered for the holiday felt the small, sharp sting of blessing touch their souls.


	12. Shimmer and Gloss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Declan, Merrill and Varric meet another old friend from their Kirkwall days in the Alienage and go to war against a pair of powerful battlemages.

After meeting and greeting old friends, they slept through the night and much of the next day at the Grimoire and Marquis. Varric wondered if it chafed against Declan, as he knew it did him, to have to wait until nightfall before starting out for the Alienage but... Aveline and Athenril both avowed that the day belonged to Choir Boy and his black and crimson men-at-arms from Starkhaven, from the courtyard of the viscount's palace all the way to the ugly outskirts of Darktown.

It would have been cruel, at any rate, to make Merrill move too much or fast before evening, anyway. Though haler than the night before, when she'd barely dragged herself through the Grimoire and Marquis' door, she'd still drooped like a daisy in the blazing August sun upon arising that morning. Crackers, dried fruit and a few handfuls of filberts had done much to revive her, though, and she no longer hobbled like a woman two score years older than she was.

Aveline, able to see things as always with a trained investigator's near clairvoyance, said over their late breakfast, "It takes a little more out of you each time you do it, Merrill... doesn't it?"

Merrill turned her own bright, green eyes on the larger woman. "It does for truth... but not so much as those fellows from Starkhaven would have taken out of all of us, not nearly. I only did what I had to do." Varric, from his end of the table, wondered if she was trying to convince herself as much as Aveline, but chose--for the first time in his life, perhaps--that discretion was the better part of valor. There wasn't really anything to say, after all. Besides... he'd seen what those... things... that Merrill had called through her rift were capable of, what they seemed to take delight in. It didn't bear dwelling on or talking about, especially in their current straits.

Aveline seemed to agree. She raised her hand. "Peace, Merrill, I believe you. We had a saying in Kristjanson, where I grew up. 'The mabari will never surrender a steak, once his teeth have set in it.' My father always just laughed, said it was further proof that all Ferelden just had dogs on the brain. Knowing what I do now, though... I know why our neighbors always said it to him, then sadly shook their heads. I will let you have your steak, little mabari. Just make sure that you are willing to pay the price of your power when it comes due."

Merrill fell silent. Having no desire to refight the Battle of the Squealing Fields, Varric wiped his mouth, took his leave and headed outside where Declan, Athenril and a few of her smugglers were flinging arrows into packed straw archery butts painted on the outside of the Grimoire and Marquis and a couple of buildings near its alleyway.

After Declan scored perfect shots in the center ring of each target, Athenril stepped up to the line with her shortbow. Varric approved; it was a good weapon for navigating Kirkwall's narrow, crooked streets and blind alleys, especially if you happened to be hunting by night. With no more than an instant's hesitation, she drew and let fly a series of shafts. Eight of ten struck the center circle, at least three quavering near Declan's, and the remainder struck right outside. A pretty good archer, all things considered, even if she wasn't at the level of Leliana or Declan Hawke. No one was, after all, save his own self. It was worth applauding, so Varric did so.

Athenril turned, grinning, and struck a bow. "Thank you, thank you. Validation from Kirkwall's most famous archer means more than I can say."

Declan rolled his eyes. "Most famous archer... with that devilish machine he carries it wouldn't shock me if Varric could mow down an entire army."

He patted Bianca's carriage fondly. "Your point? It seems to me like we could use some of our army slaying capability, right about now."

"Well," Declan said, "I don't suppose I have one. At least not one as good as you just made. It just seems unnatural, I guess."

"Damn skippy. There's nothing natural about Bianca and me." He turned to Athenril. "I've got a question, if you don't mind me being a little bit forward."

She shrugged. "Suit yourself. I'll try to answer."

"How do you shoot so well with your, er..." Varric clapped his palm over his eye. "Your, y'know... affliction."

"It's just the way Declan taught me, that's all. I don't actually look at the target so much as I feel through my arrow, into it. If I feel right, the arrow gets where I need it to go. If I get distracted--say by the world's noisiest dwarf blundering out of a door, yawning and greeting the world at large--then I'll miss."

"That sounds deceptively simple."

"That's because it is," Declan said. "Where I'm from, the Korcari Wilds, it's all dense woods, ice cold most of the year. When I was out hunting, if I'd tried to sight down on a hall or grouse, the dappling of the leaves would have played havoc with my vision and turned even the simplest shots into a trick worthy of the Great Summerday Carnival in Denerim. I had to learn to shoot where I could sense the animal. I rationalized it by saying that I was hearing the creature breathe, or even smelling it, but the sense was far more subtle than all that. Watch..."

He drew without looking, his breath changing nary a hitch, and let fly an arrow that split one of Athenril's. "It's all about the arrow, really. For me, at least."

"I shoot a little differently," Varric said. "Mostly it's Bianca's job; I just hold her. She decides where the arrows are supposed to go and makes sure they get there." He chambered the automatic feed and let three bolts fly, in rapid succession. All landed less than a hair's breadth from Declan's handiwork. "Baby felt like showing off a little bit, today I guess."

"She's a bloody good shot," Athenril said in a paper dry sotto.

"What strikes me," Declan said, "is how differently we and Leliana shoot from Sera. She's deadly as a red and black bootlace-snake but shoots so... mechanically, like a rank beginner gone wild. When I told her how I shot, she pulled the ugliest face I'd ever seen and said I must have been a secret apostate." He laughed. "I probably shouldn't have revealed how my father hunted with Carver and me, when we were little... I could shoot well, from the time I could toddle, but neither he nor my brother could hit anything. He had his 'ways' of bringing home game, usually a snared hare or hedgehog, but Carver desperately wanted to bring down a red halla. So sometimes, even if his arrow didn't get anywhere near the creature, it would just fall over dead, maybe from the strong wind of Carver's shaft whisking by. We didn't figure out until I was fourteen and he was ten that Father was using his magic to drop them."

He paused a moment, then went on. "At any rate, when I told all of this to Sera I thought she'd die of a surfeit of lampreys. It was a month and more than four pounds of muffins before she'd talk to me or Merrill, afterward."

They shared a laugh, then grew still. The shadows had begun to grow longer. In the distance, Varric could see members of Aveline's company of Guards lighting the dim, sooty lamps that made travel in the rough streets of Darktown as safe as it was ever going to be. Tension grew on the air. They'd be setting off for the Alienage, soon, to face off with the elves of Kirkwall's ghostly protector, Sebastian's men and, if they were lucky, before long the Prince of Starkhaven himself. It was a sobering line of thought. Varric reflected, and not for the last time, that he could have done with a few more pulls on the ale cup before breakfast.

It wasn't long before everyone had met at the rally point to set off. Merrill looked well, with only a bandage wound around her forearm as a reminder of the queer, awful powers she'd unleashed on the Docks less than two days ago. Aveline, worn and exhausted as she must have been, seemed of better cheer with Declan back. Though she was the Guard-Captain and had near single-handedly kept Kirkwall out of utter chaos, after the Battle of the Gallows, she had never been truly comfortable with positions of strategic command. Her entire career as the Copper Marigold pointed up this fact. There was no overarching plan to overthrow the Prince or defeat his soldiers, nothing beyond "hold this neighborhood at all costs, strike back when attacked and keep a lid on things." Her large, dense frame sagged in relief at being again by the side of a man she'd followed out of hell once and would follow into it again.

Bethany slouched beside her, ambling with the practiced ease of one used to far darker roads than those leading to the Kirkwall Alienage. Varric studied the hollow cheeks, once pink and round, the eyes made even darker by the shadows they were cast in. He wondered if this woman could still, in all honesty, be called "Sunshine," but then saw the tight, twin braids trailing across her shoulders and decided that, yeah, she was probably still lurking somewhere up under the veneer of Grey Warden, warrior and force mage. He felt a slow grin breaking across his face. She turned her gaze towards him. "What?"

"Nothing, Sunshine," he said. "Just remembering better days."

"We could use a few of those, couldn't we?" She smiled a little, in the shade. "That's why I like it when you call me Sunshine. No one else ever called me anything like that, except my father; I was Sunshine, Carver was Stormcloud and Declan was Acorn, because none of us could keep him out of the trees. It makes me feel like a little girl again."

"That's why I'm here, kid," Varric said. "I hope it's the kind of feeling you'll take with you wherever you go."

"I really have, even into the Deep Roads. It's just about the only light down there." She pursed her lips, then turned to her brother. Varric marveled at how easily he'd regained command of their little group from Aveline, probably because she'd never really wanted it in the first place, found the chains of command even more restricting than those of duty. "We're going to have a busy time of things, tonight."

He looked over his shoulder at his sister. "What do you mean, Bethany?"

"I can sense two of Sebastian's mages, out tonight. They're not headed toward the distraction that Donnic has planned outside the Hanged Man, but they don't know exactly where we're headed, either. Not well enough to lay a trap. They're on patrol, though, and very aware that Merrill and I are out and about." A smirk tugged at the corners of her lips. "She has got them very confused and, as of last night, profoundly terrified." It faded. "We could be facing the worst thing possible; a pair of prepared, determined battlemages."

"Do you have any idea who it might be?" Merrill asked. "I feel them too--you'd have to be stone blind and deaf to not--but it's always nice to know who you're going to a party with."

"Shimmer and Gloss would be my best guess," Bethany said. "They're a pair of enchanters from the Cumberland Circle, loyalists who came to Sebastian's court when the rebellion started. They're brother and sister--about two years apart and utterly inseparable. They weren't considered anything special in Cumberland but..." She shrugged. "A run of the mill robe in that place might be a heavy-hitter, somewhere else."

"Fantastic," Athenril said. "A pair of prepared, determined, possibly powerful battlemages. The night keeps getting better." She brushed a coppery strand behind one ear. "Do you have any idea what they can do?"

"I've faced them, at the edges of fights, before. Shimmer is a primal mage--utterly uninterested in or unsuited for any of the subtler schools of magic, and just seems to like the feel of fire and lightning flowing through his fingers. I was able to match him, when we were just tossing raw hunks of Fade energy at once another from a distance, but there's a lot of power there. Luckily I have a few tricks he'll have never even heard of, and Merrill has even more. As for Gloss...

Bethany tugged one of her braids. "She's a lot more subtle, focuses mostly on illusion, misdirection and using glyphs or wisps to drain you or make you feel weak so that men-at-arms can cut you to bits or her brother can blow you apart with his magic. She's very dangerous, in that way, especially considering you almost never see her--Shimmer likes to stand out at the front of a fight, flinging fireballs around. Declan..." She touched her brother's shoulder. "If you or Varric can draw a bead on her, get a shaft or two into her, that would simplify matters considerably."

He laughed. "It would indeed, yes. Matters always seem a little simpler when your foes have a few arrows hanging out of them. The Wardens have truly found a master strategist in you, Beth. No wonder they've promoted you to Lieutenant of the Grey."

She giggled in spite of herself, then said, "All right, funny man, okay. But still... heed my words. You'll recognize Gloss, if you can find her... tall, skinny enchantress, lurking at the edge of the fight. I can handle Shimmer, but we need her out of action just as badly as him. If it even comes to all that." She made Andraste's protective sign over her heart. "Maker preserve us we won't even need to worry about it and they'll be creeping around the wharf district, instead."

Varric threw an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. "I admire the optimism, Sunshine, but have we literally ever been that lucky?"

"Well," she said, "there was only the one high dragon at the Bone Pit and not three or four of them, right? Or has your legend of my brother's exploits expanded again?"

"Not that far yet," Varric said, "but I hope we put another chapter or two onto it in the next couple of days. Title them, 'Wherein the Champion Kicked a Choir Boy's Ass All the Way to Starkhaven.' It'll be a best-seller."

"Hush, Varric," Declan said. "Don't forget that Sebastian was my friend--yours, too--and killing him would make as big a mess in the Marches as the one we're trying to undo. We're just going to talk to him, that's all."

"Fair enough, fair enough." Varric raised his hands in supplication. "You're the boss, boss. But don't mind if I make it an epic bowman's duel between two expert archers, in the song. Sister Nightingale will probably enjoy singing about that a lot more than a spirited political discussion over tea between two old friends."

Bethany sighed. "It must be wonderful, to be friends with Sister Nightingale. She's my absolute favorite singer, even though I've only ever heard her once. That marvelous voice just hangs in my heart."

"The only word that describes it as well as 'wonderful' is 'terrifying,' Sunshine... but maybe I can hook you two up after all this is over. She can autograph your staff or something."

Bethany hugged her staff, Malcolm's Honor, close to her breast. The party grew still and silent. The Alienage's tall gate-housing, bare and open as it always was in modern Kirkwall, grew closer. Tension hung on the air. A single figure jogged out of the night mist and offered a wave. "Hey! I'm glad to see you guys..." It grew closer, revealing an elven woman in her early twenties. She was short and sturdy with close cropped dark curls and the huge, luminous eyes so common to the people. A Kirkwall City Guard corporal's uniform, ragged from hard use but well kept, wrapped her well muscled frame. "Things have been bad here--bad all around, I guess. I shouldn't complain--we've got our little ace up our sleeves, after all--but it's good to see friendly faces nonetheless."

Declan started for an instant at the welcome, then felt a smile break across his face in recognition. "It must truly be old home week in Kirkwall. Lia, how are you?"

"Still living," she said, "thanks to you. And here you are again. Matters can only improve from here--by which I mean become immeasurably more violent." She mimed waving a tiny flag. "Hooray!" Finally noting the presence of her commanding officer, Lia stood up straight and snapped off a salute. "Captain, ma'am. It's good to see you, too."

Aveline returned it, then waved her off. "At ease, Corporal. You've done good work keeping these people safe, according to the few messages we've passed between us. Can you tell me anything about what's been going on, here?"

She shrugged. "About the same as the rest of Kirkwall, I guess. Starkhaven men-at-arms showed up in the Alienage, a day or two after they occupied Hightown, looking for 'volunteers' for the Prince's war effort. Well, the dumbest Alienage rat in Thedas would know what that means, right?"

Athenril snorted. "Water toting, ditch digging, latrine mucking and bed warming for no pay whatsoever. The glorious life of an urban knife-ear."

"Got it in one, miss," Lia said. She snorted. "And speaking of dumb Alienage rats, I was fool enough to meet them head on, thought my position as a member of Kirkwall's Guard might protect me."

"Lia," Varric said. "You've got to build a little sense of self-preservation one day."

"Maybe, but it wasn't that day I can tell you," she said. "I stomped right out in front of them, bold as my brass badge, and told them that the Guard was the law in Kirkwall, not some posse of thugs out of Starkhaven, and that I'd be damned if I let them press-gang the people on my beat into working for the Prince against their wills."

"Admirable fervor for your duty, Corporal," Aveline said. "But Varric is right. You really do need to think a little more strategically."

"Well, don't forget how you met me, ma'am. I had wandered off with a strange man and found myself in danger of getting eaten by giant spiders or worse. I guess I just don't learn my lessons well." She pursed her lips, and gestured to the vhenadahl. Spikes had been planted deep in the tree's flesh. Sap and other stains clung around them, gave it an appearance of weeping. "They slung me up against that, tied me down tight and flogged me for my trouble--said it was what an insolent knife-ear got for strutting around in my uniform."

Aveline glowered at the assault on one of her officers, the insult proffered to the Guard as a whole. Varric winced, partly at Lia's story and partly at what the Captain would do to the men who'd done this when she found them. He had a feeling, in a dark corner of his heart, that it would make what Merrill's summoned creatures had done to their attackers look pleasant in comparison. He managed to speak. "What happened then, sweet-heart?"

"They set about rounding up folks to do their work for them, while I mostly just hung there and concentrated on bleeding." She raised the hem of her tunic, showed deep, recently healed weals cut into the pale flesh of her back. "Hurt like all the hells, but they were thoughtful enough to toss a bucket of harbor water over me."

Merrill shuddered. "Salt on all that raw flesh... that must have hurt even worse, you poor dear."

"It did, yeah, but nothing got infected. Really nice of them, considering... well, if you ignore the whole beating the shit out of me thing."

"What happened then?" Declan said. "Are there Alienage people we need to rescue? Do you have any idea where they're being held?"

"No, and that's the funny thing." A slow grin spread across Lia's face. "That was the first night the Ghost showed up." She drew a deep breath. "No one knows exactly who he is, what his story is, but that night elves in the stockade they'd thrown up and the Starkhaven men-at-arms guarding them alike saw a flickering figure, right at the edges of their vision. Strange noises, like banging and howling, everything that a ghost is supposed to do."

"Right," Varric said. "Weird shit."

"The weirdest," Lia said. "Come morning, the two sergeants and lieutenant of the Starkhaven soldiers were nailed to buildings, around the Alienage square, with their tongues cut out and faces peeled off like potato skins." She grimaced. "It was ugly. One of the sergeants actually lived until sundown, but there wasn't anything their healer could do. He didn't say a whole hell of a lot, either way."

"Anyway, they all got spooked--as you do, when your fearless leaders have been quite literally defaced--and cleared out of the Alienage that night. Some folks that hadn't gotten taken in the first place broke the stockade locks, to let our people go, and we battened down the hatches to wait out the night. One of their field medics had dropped his kit, poultices and bandages and everything, and I just can't tell you how good it felt to have that slapped against my back instead of the raw, crushed elfroot that our apothecary had been using." She tugged her ear. Varric had seen this enough to wonder if it was a racial tic. "I'd been lying flat on my stomach during all the commotion and would have denied Andraste herself in favor of the lady who put that stuff on me."

"The soldiers came back at first light, pissed off royally and carrying axes. I think they intended to cut down the vhenadahl, maybe even fire the whole Alienage. A big group met them, carrying weapons they'd looted from what the Starkhaveners had dropped the day before, kitchen knifes, belaying hooks, marlinspikes, clubs--anything you can use to whack somebody up side the head. My papa was in the lead--he's hahren now and said that if I'd been brave enough to step out front and take my stripes for the Alienage that he wouldn't have felt right not doing the same. They stood off against each other, lined up, surly and ready to fight. He was beautiful, though, Papa... I heard him say that no matter what they did to us, even if they killed everyone, would they feel comfortable sleeping that night? He asked them if they remembered the lieutenant and two sergeants, told them that they were being stalked by the spirit of the elven Dread Wolf and that they ought to consider carefully before they made their next move."

"Fen'harel ma ghilana," Merrill said, "Fen'harel ma halam."

"Yeah, I don't really know what that means," Lia said, "but I do know that the Starkhaveners cleared out pretty fast and haven't bothered us except to snatch one or two pretty girls who were getting way too friendly with them on the borders of Lowtown, anyway... and that for each one we lost, they lost two in particularly creative, gory ways."

"The name you're invoking, though," Merrill said. "Lethallin, if you call to him enough, he might just answer you."

"Maker's breath," Lia said, "I wish he would--hell, I hope he has. Our ghost is the only hope that this Alienage has got, the only reason it's standing and occupied. And you need us to carry out your plan--you need him."

Declan slipped an arm around his wife's waist. "She's got you there, ma vhenan."

Before Merrill could answer, or anyone could say anything else, the air changed. What had been a Kirkwall night like any other, murky and damp but clear, burst into furious rain. Thunder rumbled overhead. Laughter sounded behind them, in front, from the sides. Bethany whipped around, looking for its source. She uttered a curse that neither Varric nor her brother would have believed she knew. "It's Shimmer," she said. "He's pulled a storm in off the Waking Sea and dropped it on our heads. I'm trying to find him--if I don't get ahold of this he'll be able to march an army down our throats before we're even able to get our blades out of their sheathes."

True to Bethany's prediction, they began to hear the clattering of shields and armor, the tramp of boots. First a few dozen, then hundreds, thousands, more. The clamor came from each side, above and below, inside their heads. Vague shadows moved in the fog, but no one could make out even a single, concrete image of their enemies. They could have been anywhere, or a product entirely of the imagination, though none in the party imagined they would be that lucky. "Let me guess," Varric said. "If this lovely weather is Shimmer, then this must be Gloss."

"Yes," Bethany said. "And I have no idea where she's at, damn the witch's eyes."

"And if that wasn't fine enough," Declan said, "this rain's made our bowstrings useless." He sighed, and flicked a Shard of the Fallen into each hand. "I suppose I have been meaning to brush up on my duelling... I just hadn't thought to make it such an intensive refresher course."

"Cheer up, Hawke," Varric said. "At least you'll have lots of partners."

"True, true... but in this case famine might have been preferable to feast."

Athenril rolled her eyes. "We're about to die and they're joking. Great."

"They do that a lot," Merrill said. The Torch of the Falon'Din began to glow at its tip. "You'll get used to it, in time."

"I hope I have the time, kitten." She whipped her Coterie shivs out of their sheathes. "All right, you rat bastards... let's get down to business."

As the figures drew closer by the second, the rogues tensed to strike with their short, fast blades, Lia and Aveline raised their shields to guard and Bethany and Merrill desperately sought Shimmer and Gloss. Matters had been this bad before, Varric knew, but not for at least a couple of weeks. He sighed. Two nights in a row fighting impossible odds... he was getting too old for this shit.


	13. The Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An old friend helps to defeat the sorcerers Shimmer and Gloss.

For the second time in as many nights, Varric Tethras found himself dodging, cutting and thrusting with Bianca's bayonet. Nothing, he figured, exactly like a proper Kirkwall homecoming. This was a little worse than the night before, though. Then he'd at least had the pleasure of knowing who and what he was fighting. Tonight, between the slapping, unnatural rain and shifting, slithering shadows he found himself unnable to come to grips with a concrete opponent.

The bayonet whiffed through forms no more substantial than smoke, scraped or clanged on occasion against another piece of metal and--once or twice, at least--sank with a satisfying smack into yielding flesh. The yelps and yowls that resounded through the fog, in these lucky moments, were music to his ears, a fine counterpoint in harmony to Bianca's song.

He wasn't the only one scoring hits, though. Shimmer's storm and Gloss' illusion work had to be playing havoc with the Starkhaven men-at-arms, too, else they'd all be dead already, but Varric felt the glancing edge of an enemy sword far too many times for comfort. He bled from minor cuts that wound all across his arms and chest and a deeper cut, on the thigh above the knee, poured blood to pool in and around his right boot. That one was going to sting in the morning. Well, he amended, if I'm alive in the morning to feel it.

He thought of other times when he'd fought in dire magical straits. Facing off against demons like Xebenkeck or Imshael, powerful as they had been, did not seem as awful sometimes as fighting a human magic user. Demons could be understood, after a fashion. They operated under rules as rigid and queer as the nobility of Orlais. Humans, like Gaspard du Puis or his master Quentin, could come up with any damned fool mischief to get into. Varric shuddered. Both men were dead, Gaspard at his own hand and Quentin at Declan's, but neither's death could rebuild the string of lives left broken by their madness and obsession with blood magic. Poor, poor Leandra Amell... finally risen from the ashes of her family's misfortune, only to be brought low by something so fundamentally stupid as a madman's whim.

And now Declan had been married to a blood mage for more than a decade--the sweetest one in Thedas, sure, but... yeah, you never knew how life was going to turn out. Sort of like in the Gallows Courtyard, after Declan had given up everything to protect Kirkwall's opperessed mages and been repaid by Orsino with the cruelest betrayal.

The Harvester. Orsino had seemed so kind, so dignified, so noble in his melancholy. That... thing he'd become, though. Varric didn't like to think about it. He remembered the bodies rising and feeling disgusted but confident. Walking corpses? Any fool with half a brain, a quick knife hand and a strong stomach could handle those. When they began to wrap around the First Enchanter, though, bones snapping and flesh molding into something new and awful. Varric's gorge rose even now, so many years later, when he thought about the emperor of all abominations that a man with such gentle, sad eyes had become in a moment of pure desperation. He couldn't avoid it on long, sleepless, sweaty summer nights, though, nor nightmares in the deepest chill of winter.

It didn't seem important right now, though, or at least not as important as dodging, cutting, jumping, rolling. The others worked diligently beside him. Declan and Athenril leapt and whirled, plunging their daggers into fog and flesh alike. Sweat stood out in beads on his painted face, above the wild, curling beard. She spun and slashed low where he went high, fighting back to back. No one could draw close, though Varric couldn't tell if they were making much headway against their enemies, either, in all this mess.

Bethany and Merrill still concentrated most of their effort on finding Shimmer and Gloss so that they could engage the other mages directly and bring the fight onto more even footing. Bethany had raised a barrier around them--Merrill had no idea how to even go about erecting one, Varric was almost certain. It kept the worst of Shimmer's lightning off, but couldn't do anything against Gloss' perception clouding abilities. Lia half lay, half kneeled in the soupy Alienage mud, bleeding from a deep gash along her ribs, still fighting as hard as she could manage at the edges of consciousness. She breathed shallowly, eyes fluttering open and shut. Varric had seen her struggle towards her feet, once or twice, only to plop back down in the muck. She wouldn't last much longer, bleeding like that. And after all she'd done for the Alienage. He winced. Poor, brave kid. Aveline fought valiantly to cover the other woman wth her shield and had, to Varric's way of thinking, built up a pretty impressive bulwark of the dead around them. Not bad work, he figured, for a fight against people you couldn't even really see. Aveline was just like that, though, a force of nature as sure as this blighted storm.

They were well and truly caught, though. Survival was just a matter of time, exhaustion catching up and causing one or the other of them to stumble. Athenril did first. One of her soft, lamb-skin boots slipped and turned on the mud. She quavered, in her stance, and a ribbon of scintillating blue light snaked out of the clouds towards her.

It struck a glancing blow but, to their horror, this was enough to blow the smuggler out of her shirt, shoes and eyepatch. She left them behind, tumbled through the air and slammed against an apple-cart with enough force to bring it down in shambles. She slid down, struck the mud heavily and lay there like she'd never move again. Now down two members, the party's defense began to wane in the face of renewed onslaught. The end began to look inevitable and bitter as the dregs at the bottom of a bottle of bathtub boot screech.

Before matters could deteriorate any further, Varric noticed a figure flashing, a man-shaped bolt of lightning, bob and weave among the milling shadows of Starkhaven men-at-arms. He'd have assumed it was another one of the mage siblings' tricks had Gloss been that pointed or Shimmer that subtle. And besides, soldiers were falling away from it--as far as Varric could tell--cursing, bleeding, moaning for their mothers.

It flickered this way and that, to and fro, before leaping to the top of a ramshackle Alienage hut--for those families of cockroach farmers too poor even to subsist in the crumbling tenements. It grabbed the chimney, or at least what Varric thought had been the chimney, and twisted. A horrible, grinding screech rang out across the cold, windy storm, and then a single, sharp crack. Silence reigned after. The uncanny fog lifted. Details grew clearer, throughout the Alienage.

Gloss. Their new friend had found her, mounted the shack beside her and broken the enchantress' neck. She hung limp now in the arms of this suddenly familiar phantom, a tall, perhaps even handsome woman with long, silvery hair. She gurgled, trying to say something, or scream, or maybe just breathe. Her fingers and feet twitched in a puppet's mute dance of what they knew should have been agony but had forgotten. Fenris let the woman drop, offered a quick, two fingered salute and dove back into the fray, wreaking havoc wherever his long, red-steel Bassrath-kata could reach.

Their onslaught now naked save the driving rain, Shimmer's men-at-arms fell back in disarray. There were a lot of them, not as many as Varric had counted originally, and judging by the numbers of dead and wounded the companions had been making a better accounting for themselves than he'd originally thought. It wouldn't have ended well, without Fenris' intervention, but they wouldn't have died without drawing blood, either. It was a comforting notion, although not nearly so comforting as not dying in the first place.

Merrill shouted, above the fray, "Elvheni ma halam!" At these Dalish words of power, the vhenadahl's branches lashed out in fury, sweeping men in a broad swath before it. Noses, collar-bones and necks snapped. The men-at-arms, already hard-pressed by the legendary Dread Ghost and demoralized by Gloss' death, began to seem likely candidates for a full rout.

They'd forgotten Shimmer, though. He stormed through the crowd, calling fingers of lightning and flinging bolts of raw Fade energy. One fell inches short of Varric's head, against Aveline's kite shield. Seeing how the raised brass dragon boss was blasted away, he mouthed a silent thanks to the Maker and his friend that it hadn't been his face. Many of the men-at-arms weren't so lucky, though. Continuing their flight and facing the enchanter's wrath seemed more dangerous than getting stuck back into the fight. The core of a rally started forming around him.

Bethany, finally able to concentrate on Shimmer and summon the full force of her power, put an end to it. She used Lift and Slam, two of the simplest spells in a force mage's arsenal, with all of a Grey Warden battlemage's considerable mental muscle powering them. Shimmer leapt suddenly a dozen feet into the air and crashed into the mud before he was even able to scream. He struggled to rise, then to crawl towards them, or at least loose another spell, but it became increasingly obvious that nearly every bone in the man's body must have been broken. Varric winced.

Sunshine, always such a sweet girl, took pity on him. She lifted him again, and then called out one of her words of power. "Throw!" He flew like an arrow from Declan's bow and then burst against the side of a tenement. The unnatural rain ceased, before another, even worse rain of rusty droplets and larger, indeterminate hunks of flesh splashed and flopped against them all. The tenement's wall seemed painted black, in the moonlight. The earthy, fetid smell of burst viscera and copper permeated the square.

Varric winced again, and fought to supress a gag.

It all proved too much for the men-at-arms. A few threw down their weapons, raised their hands and sued for clemency. The vast majority of their brethren took to their heels, trampling the wounded or unlucky in their rush. The former crowd, taking heed that their conquerers had no pressing interest in them, joined their fellows. A boring night patrol in the Hightown market seemed like a paradise, now, or even fighting the Copper Marigold's soldiers in cramped, trash strewn alleys behind the Hanged Man. Varric sympathized. Shit had a tendency to get too real when enchanters got involved, and here four dangerous ones had worked hard to shred each other and anyone else who got in the way.

Fenris must have felt the same way. "Maker's breath, and you people wonder why the small folk fear mages." He hopped down from the overturned tradesman's cart he stood on, hurdled a man's body and lighted delicately beside them all. The ghost of a smile passed across his gaunt, handsome face, beneath the gore sliming it. "My friends," he said. "Merrill. I'm not sure that I will ever intimidate the Starkhaveners in quite the same way again, after Warden Hawke's display of power."

"I personally approve," Merrill said. "Magic is a far sight better than being horribly killed with swords and things, after all."

Declan knelt beside Lia. He lifted the hem of her white City Guard uniform's blouse. It disclosed a shallow gash along the ribs, a dark, swollen bruise beneath them. He pressed his fingers to it, gently. She moaned, pale and sweating. Declan turned to Aveline. "One of those blows ruptured something in her. She won't last much longer without a lot of help. Is there a healer nearby?"

Aveline stammered. "I-I don't know, Hawke. One of the men-at-arms had a hammer, I know that much. He'd have crushed my skull, if Lia hadn't dove between us."

Varric shook his head. "You've got to get yourself a helmet, chief. Can't just be trusting to that hard head of yours."

She shot him a dark glance and squatted, joining Declan beside in the injured girl. She stroked dark bangs back from her clammy brow. "You were so brave, Corporal. I don't know if you can hear me, but you'll make sergeant for this. And get a medal. I promise."

"That'll be a great comfort to her father," Fenris said. "He can pin it to her grave."

Aveline glared, but didn't really have anything to say. Athenril limped over to them, barefoot and cramped. The eyelid of her good eye twitched, as did the flesh below it. Bright burns wound their way up one side of her body, glared angrily on her throat and cheek. Taken with the eyepatch and tattered ear they lent her a particularly fierce aspect. "Hey, guys. I'm fine too. Not that anyone asked. Maybe I can get a medal?"

"Thank the Maker you are," Bethany said. "We've lost too many good people as it is."

"Well, I don't know if you noticed through all the tears you all are shedding, but that one's not dead yet. Lady Elegant's house is close by--she and her husband took over her old flophouse in Lowtown, near the Alienage gates, after the Prince overran their mansion in Hightown." She shrugged, winced at how it pulled her back and shoulders. "I don't know if it'll make any difference, but if anyone ought to know Elegant's bona fides it's you, Declan. She patched the two of us up more times than I care to remember."

Declan frowned dubiously. "If you think it'll help, Athenril. Lia needs a dedicated healer, though." He sighed. "Maybe at Elegant's you can at least make her comfortable. It'll be better than just lying out here in the street."

"I think you'll find Elegant better able to help than you might suppose. She's got a little more magic in her touch than most potion makers." Athenril winked, couldn't get control of her eye for a moment, and cursed sulphurously. "Yeah. That's not getting old at all."

His eyes widened. "You mean that Elegant is... and for all these years I didn't know?"

"I did." Bethany raised her hand, had the good grace to blush. "Her talent is very minor, and she aided anyone who could pay a pittance so even those Templars who noticed it didn't say anything, even at the height of Meredith's madness." She chuckled. "Honestly, Declan, how else could her potions have gotten our idiot uncle's thumb back on, that time?"

"You make a good point," he murmured. To Athenril: "Do you think you can help get her there in time?"

"Yeah, and me too." She drew a heavy, shuddering breath. "I know that I look like the picture of health, here, but I am seriously not feeling too awesome."

"I can't thank you enough, Athenril," Declan said. "I saved Lia from a bad end once, years ago. Losing her now..."

"Yeah, I know, you big goon." Athenril punched his shoulder gently. "You save everyone. Now go and kick Sebastian Vael in the ass at least once for me." She knelt, draped Lia's arm around her shoulders and struggled to rise. Declan, Fenris and Aveline helped her to her feet. "Oof, kid... you're heavy. Or maybe I'm just getting old."

Lia struggled weakly, tried to speak. Athenril laid a finger across her lips. "Shh, baby. I'm getting us some help." She nodded to her companions, and began the long, hobbling walk toward the Alienage gates, Elegant's apartment and safety. Each step forward seemed to call on one back and two to the side, but they slowly gained ground.

Varric watched her stagger. "Do you think they'll make it?"

"Athenril's stubborn, Lia's strong and Elegant's a good healer," Fenris said. "I never would have even guessed her to have even a little magic."

"You see?" Merrill said. "We're not all evil monsters. Not even most of us."

"All, perhaps not. Most? I can't say. You? Most definitely."

She stamped her small, bare foot. It slapped against the mud with a sucking sound. "After all these years, Fenris, you can't say anything kinder to me?"

He shook his head. "No. Not when I know what you called upon, the other night... things forbidden for a reason and best left forgotten."

Varric laid a hand on his shoulder. "Still talking in riddles, old buddy. I'd be scared as all get out, if I could just figure out what the hell you were talking about most of the time." He looked at Declan's petite, dripping wet wife, all huge, mossy eyes and dark bangs plastered on her delicate face. "Maybe not of Merrill, though."

"More fool you, then. There are magics even a dwarf can't resist."

"Yeah," he said. "More fool me. But seriously... we're all going to feel like incredibly big fools if we stand around arguing all night instead of getting on with what we need to do. Can you lead us to this supposed path directly from the Alienage to the palace?"

Fenris nodded. "Then lead on, my good ghost," Declan said. He wrinkled his nose and kicked away something that might have been a chunk of Shimmer's spine and ribcage. It struck the mud with a wet thump, somewhere out of sight. "I'm ready to get out of this weather."

"Then follow me. The passage opens up into the warehouse, where we first met. It's where I've been holing up." They picked through the Alienage, avoiding deep, watery ruts in the mud and the mutilated bodies of the fallen. At the end of their walk, he gestured to a rough, splintery door. "My humble abode. It's not much, but it does keep the rain off."

"I can imagine that's a plus," Declan said. "Especially after tonight."

They moved inside, found spacious, austere living quarters even less hospitable than Merrill's tiny hovel in the Alienage had been so many years ago. Fenris could live, had always lived, hard, stale breadcrumbs and the dregs of sour wine. A cot with one blanket hugged against the wall, and a rickety table and lamp. The copy of The Book of Shartan that Declan had given him lay on the table. Varric remembered them finding it beneath the vhenadahl, how Bethany had taken the time to visit him each night, teaching the volatile man how to read. It struck him that even Fenris, who professed to loathe all mages, could not bring himself to truly hate Bethany Hawke. Maybe it was because she, at that point, had hated herself enough for both of them, or that she reminded him of his own sister long lost in Tevinter or perhaps she was just the way she was and that was enough. He had nicknamed her Sunshine for a reason, after all.

In the blackness beyond his living quarters, Fenris pried open a trapdoor that lead to a cramped tunnel. They filed in. The shorter ones among their number, Varric and Merrill especially, were able to tread comfortably. Aveline and Fenris had to duck, and Declan found himself bent nearly double at the waist. "Here we are," Fenris said. "It's not comfortable, but it will get you where you're going." The companions started a slow, painstaking, uphill journey through decades of dust, spider webs and rat droppings.

"Not that I'm anything less than overjoyed to see you, Broody, but what's brought you back to Kirkwall? Last I heard you were making life hell for slavers up and down the Imperial Highway."

"I was, or did for a time, at least. I tracked down Variana, to make amends with her."

"How'd that go? More of a Hawke-y sibling reunion, or more like mine and Bartrand's?"

"I didn't kill her, if that's what your asking. I don't kill absolutely everyone I meet."

"And a varterral doesn't bite the heads off everyone in the clan," Merrill murmured. "Just those fool enough to go near it."

He turned blue, baleful eyes on her. "It wasn't awful. I stayed with her a few weeks and we talked about our family, how she was doing as a member of the liberati. She filled me in on my history--I had forgotten so much. I thought about settling down, becoming Leto again."

"I guess that didn't turn out so well for you," Varric said.

"Not as such. Varania and I got along well, but I had made enemies in my travels."

"Such a friendly fellow as you?" Declan chuckled. "I'm shocked."

"I can be an acquired taste. At any rate, to keep my sister safe I did the only thing I could--hit the road. I met my hunters near her house, left a trail of corpses behind me yet again, and wound my way south, towards Nevarra. I took work as a caravaner or bodyguard when I could find it, robbed slavers and bandits when I couldn't. It was in an alehouse, there, that I heard of Kirkwall's plight. I knew that the elves would suffer, as they always do, and even the best intentions of a good woman like Aveline couldn't do much for them."

He ran a long, finely boned hand through his fair hair. "So I returned, found a situation just as bad as I imagined it would be, and became the Alienage ghost. I figured that fear would be the only way that one man could take on an entire army, after all." He chuckled. "It seems to have worked for Xenon the Antiquarian."

Bethany's eyebrows raised. "They've dared to approach the Black Emporium?"

"One officious captain in the Prince's army," Aveline said. "We found the poor fellow, wandering skinless but still quite alive, near the Grimoire and Marquis. We couldn't make out much of what he said, between the screams and the chokedamp that poured out of his mouth, nose and ears, but it seemed to be a fairly trenchant warning against fooling with the Antiquarian. A party left him on the doorstep of Sebastian's headquarters, one night, with a note hung around his neck on a cord. It read, 'Don't manhandle the urchin.'"

They all stood in stunned silence for a moment. Varric broke it with a howling gale of laughter. "You've got a sick sense of humor," he said, "but I think I love it. You really need to meet a friend of mine named Sera."

"Varric, is that some kind of punishment for what she did?" Merrill asked. "I thought we liked Aveline."

He nearly fell to the floor again, struggling against convulsive mirth. "What?" Merrill said. "What did I say?"

"Nothing, Daisy, just... nothing.

"Oh. I seem to be very funny, today." They went on in silence, a few more steps, then a few more, what could have been a hundred yards or ten miles beneath the mountainous cliff where the citadel of Hightown and the viscount's palace rested. Varric wondered, a time or two, about the kind of men who'd used this trail before. Aveline and Athenril seemed to have mostly thought it was for members of the families of previous viscounts, looking for a roll in the hay in the Alienage. Given poor Seamus Dumar's infatuation with the Qunari, a propensity for the... exotic... did seem to be a feature of Kirkwall's ruling families.

He wondered, though, if it had also provided an escape route to one of the city's harder to access slums, near the water. His hometown was a dangerous place, after all. He could imagine that more than one of its previous rulers had needed a way to get the heck out of harm's way in this city's illustrious past. Seamus' father, the late Marlowe Dumar, could have used one during the Qunari episode had he not decied to stay, instead, and stand up for his city like a brave fool. Varric had not, previously, had much use for the Viscount but... facing the Arishok with nothing but your dignity and authority was as bold as it was deadly.

Finally, after what felt like hours, they came on a rusty iron ladder. Declan put his foot on the bottom rung, to test it. He was rewarded with a shriek that echoed down the tunnel, but found that it seemed solid enough to carry their weight as they climbed it, one by one. "Well," Fenris said. "Here's the passage into Sebastian's palace. It should dump you in the kitchens, if the maps I've read are correct. It's also where I take my leave of you."

"You're not coming?" Declan said.

He shook his head. "There are wards, set all over the palace, and at least one more enchanter similar in power to Shimmer and Gloss besides. My brands would bring them down on us like hawks on a rabbit."

"So this is it, then, for a while."

"It is," Fenris said. "For a while." He offered Declan his hand. "It is good to work with you again, my friend, even if just for one night." The words, so simple, carried such portent, a bridge across wounds scarred, healed over and opened again so many times over a decade's span.

He accepted the gesture, squeezed his old companion's hand. "And you. Check on Lia and Athenril, for me. Take care of them as best you can, if you can."

"I will. Be careful. "

Merrill, in her husband's shadow, spoke softly to Fenris. "And you. I don't really do any of the awful things you accuse me of, you know. You won't believe me, but I swear it."

"You do them, and worse, and don't even know it. But I find I cannot hate you, Merrill, not truly." He fixed her in his blazing eyes. Not many could have withstood that stare, but Varric saw that to her credit she did. "My hate will not make you any more or less likely to suffer the fate you beg for so often. I do pity you, though, on his behalf."

To Declan, "Try to end this madness, for all our sake, but mostly for those out in the city, the ones we protect because we can't protect themselves."

Declan nodded. He said nothing. There was, after all, very little to say. He planted one foot, again, on the iron ladder's bottom rung and began the long, last ascent toward the Viscount of Kirkwall's ancestral palace and Prince Sebastian Vael of Starkhaven.


	14. THE PRINCE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Declan and his companions meet Sebastian Vael.

Declan pushed up on the trapdoor, negotiated against its resistance for a moment and then emerged in a long, low room. It was dark, hot and the air hung close. The only light was the glow from a vast, open oven at the end of the hall. The red might have been cozy and inviting under any other circumstances; here it just represented another chance for discovery, for this fool plan to fall apart before it even had a chance to get underway.

The smells of leaven working dough permeated the damp, oppressive air. A sweet tune, hummed and sung alternatingly in a high, lilting voice twined through it. The kitchens, then, and at least one baker up early to prepare bread for the Prince and his staff. Varric, pulling himself into the room right after Declan, sighed. It seemed like for every thing that went right on this blighted mission that at least four went wrong.

After a moment's silence, to make sure no one noticed their arrival, they motioned for their companions to join them. Bethany and Merrill managed it nimbly, trained by the Grey Wardens and years of scampering through the Brecilian Forest or up and down Sundermount. Aveline came heavily, grunting with exertion, weighed down by her mail and joints worn rusty by two decades of wearing it. Finally, Varric and Declan each seized her by a wrist and heaved.

She crested the hole and sat heavily. Her mail clanked ominously in the quiet dark. She glared, whispered. "I dare either of you jesters to say anything."

"I wouldn't," Varric said, "honest. I mean, years of living an officer's soft life is bound to put a few pounds on anyone..."

  
"Yes," Merrill said, "so don't feel bad, Aveline. The armor probably didn't help matters, either. It looks quite heavy."

Varric sighed. Sometimes he couldn't decide if Merrill was truly clueless or possessed the quickest, fiercest sense of humor in Thedas. He rolled his mental dice, decided that the answer didn't suit him, and discarded them before letting fly another roll. He heard Declan, behind him. "If we're all here and in more or less one piece, let's get a move on before anyone notices us."

They crept, keeping low and covered by pots, pans and the great counters on which bread was rolled and kneaded. For all the good it did they might as well have announced their arrival with trumpets. Varric and Declan were trained in the arts of ranger and footpad, able to move swiftly and silently. Merrill had been raised in a culture that prized quiet, the better to avoid blundering shemlen and evade the many dangers of the forests and fields of Thedas.

Bethany, on the other hand, was an enchantress through to the center of her soul. Barring a cadre of well-trained Templars, there wasn't much that could stand against a force mage and Lieutenant of the Grey. Her feet scuffed on the cobblestone floor, a sound that carried far in the shadows. Behind her Aveline, poor Aveline, clanked with the more than thirty pounds of metal encasing her in the form of hauberk, gauntlets, greaves and shield. A passing regiment might have made less noise, Varric thought, or maybe it just seemed Maker-awful loud in the comparative silence.

It drew, indeed, the attention of two bakers making the palace garrison's morning bread. An elven woman, about thirty years old with dishwater hair and large, grey eyes stood beside her compatriot, one of the stockiest elves that Varric had ever seen--likely from hefting heavy sacks of flour over his shoulder all day. He stepped in front of her, thrust a protective arm that she clung to across her body. "Wh-who are you people? What are you doing here?"

Varric let a wide grin spread across his face, wondered how precisely he was going to talk his way out of this one. It proved unnecessary. Merrill raised a finger to her lips, whispered, "Hush, children." It carried unnaturally in the still heat. "Don't be afraid. We're just bakers, here to help you with your morning work."

The woman smiled. "See, Clem? They're like us." She wiped the sweat from her brow. "We could use all the help we can get, feeding this crowd."

Clem looked dubious, still, but let himself be carried along with a comforting lie. "All right, Clara. The more the merrier, I guess, as long as they know what they're doing." He spoke sharply, to Declan. "You do, don't you? I don't want to be tripping over some damn fool inexperienced baker in my own kitchen."

He raised two fingers. "On my honor as a baker, Clem.

Clem laughed. "I don't know as baker's have much honor, friend, but we're glad for the help." He turned back to his work, kneading a huge wad of dough for the soldiers' frybread. Clara followed suit, doing more delicate operations on finer pastry for the prince and his officers. The companions walked past them, gingerly but unhurriedly, out the kitchen door.

When they reached the hallway, Aveline turned to Merrill. "I thought we were caught for sure. How did you manage that?"

"A little magic--not enough to trip any wards or for someone to notice, if you're worried about that." She shrugged. "Those two wanted some help with their morning work, and even more to believe that we weren't going to harm them or make any trouble, so I offered them a way to do that through one of my hexes of misdirection. It would have been a lot harder for anyone who wasn't pre-disposed towards believing what I was saying but... in this case it worked."

"Amazing," Varric said. "Most of your hexes leave men screaming, swatting their own faces and slashing their own arms to get imaginary demons out. It's total chaos."

"That's because I'm using it in battle when you see it, Varric. The Fade I draw from is nothing more than a reflection of the world it mirrors. They are at war with us, so I set them to war with each other and themselves. Clem and Clara wanted to go about their business in harmony, so I'm glad I was able to let them have that little gift."

"It's the nature of entropy," Bethany said. "The Fade bleeds through little pinpricks in the Veil, if it's done well, changing the nature of reality in subtler ways than primal magic or even the magic of the spirit. Merrill is spectacular at it, I see--even more so than when we worked together regularly, years ago." She touched her sister-in-law's shoulder, softly. "Gloss was nothing but a ham-fisted clodhopper, compared to you."

"Ma serranas, lethallan."

"You're welcome." She chuckled, deep in her throats. "I, on the other hand, can't manage the simplex haze of confusion. That's why I throw people who irritate me far, far up into the air or against the sides of buildings, instead."

Varric gulped. He remembered, again, why the world so rightfully feared mages. This many centuries of unease bordering, in times of crisis, on outright terror could not be based on simple ignorance, cruelly as it could manifest itself at times. It was, painful though it was to admit in the presence of two mages that he loved like sisters of his heart, the kind of reasonable terror that cut through flesh and bone straight to the marrow.

They crept along the corridors, up a staircase and down another hallway, drew to a halt outside an antechamber on the second floor. Someone inside played on a slow, sweet, sad melody on the lute, sung handsomely beside it in a clear soprano. The words were Tevene, the subject love pangs and separation during war. He thought the poet in question might have been Safiya, a Seheronese erotic poet from the middle of the Black Age. The voice seemed familiar. Orana? Varric should his head. It couldn't be.

He peeked inside. Their stealth was so ineffective, anyway, that it hardly seemed like it could matter. His eyes widened in shock. It was her! She noticed the intrusion, set her lute aside and hurried to the door. "Varric! And I imagine that Messers Hawke and Merrill won't be far from you. Quid agis?"

No reason to avoid talking, now. Merrill poked her head around the door. "We're going to see Sebastian, dalen." Though only a year or two older than Orana, Merrill always called her this. Varric assumed it was an elf thing--sort of like not wearing shoes or frolicking in the meadow instead of the forest. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm waiting for him, actually. Things have been so dangerous out for the last few days--since you got here, I suppose--that he didn't want to leave me, Bodahn and Sandal alone at the mansion. They're out raiding the pantry, right now. I'm just passing the time playing."

Declan, Bethany and Aveline joined them. They pulled the door to, so that they could talk in more comfortable security. Who knew what little detail might make the difference, after all. "Mansion?" Declan said. "I assume you're talking about the old Amell estate."

"Yes," Orana said. "This is the headquarters for Sebastian's army, but he has been living in your mansion since the invasion began. He says it reminds him of better times, when he was surrounded by friends instead of sycophants and there wasn't a dagger in absolutely everyone's hand, just Anders'."

Varric chuckled, softly. That sounded like Choir Boy, all right. A sense of humor buried underneath the Starkhaven burr, but dry as the Hissing Waste and black as night in hell. Bethany spoke. Varric fought, still, to reconcile his sweet Sunshine and the explosive, dangerous force of nature he'd seen tonight. "Are you all right, Orana? He treats you all well, doesn't he?"

"Yes," she said. "If he wanted to hurt us he would have, or just put us outside. I..." She hesitated. "I know you are coming here to stop him, but Sebastian is a good man. He does all that he does for love--even this."

The key fit the lock in Varric's head. "And so do you, Songbird. How long?"

She blushed. "He was always very handsome."

"Not quite what I asked."

"Since he took up residence in the mansion, the second night. I found him praying, near tears... he asked the Maker if what he had done was right, if Elthina would be pleased with him or hate him like all his friends must." She twisted her fingers. "It was a very cold night. We... kept each other warm. We have ever since."

Aveline snorted. "Some binding vow of celibacy that was."

Declan spoke to Merrill, "I'm beginning to think that Athenril was right about the effect your people have. We poor shemlen don't have a chance." She shushed him with a good, hard pinch on the side.

Orana's eyes, the color of clover honey, flashed. "It's not like that. You make it sound dirty; it's not. I hold him, when he mourns his lost family and all those others who have gone. He keeps me close when I think about my last day with Papa in that awful cave, the things Hadriana did to him. We keep each other safe. I play my lute for him and sing, and sometimes he plays his pipes for me."

"I thought you said he didn't torture you," Varric said. Before she could lash out at him, he raised his hands in supplication. "Now, now, Songbird, come on. I'm just teasing a little. If we can't do that about old friends, who can we?"  
"That's the thing, though," she said. "I don't know if you're friends anymore, really. You are here to kill him, aren't you?" She sighed. "I wish you wouldn't. I really do. I'd stop you, if I could."

Damn her perceptive eyes. There was such a quick mind hidden behind that soft voice, Varric thought, that you could easily miss it if you weren't keeping close watch. "We're not sure, kid. We really don't know what's going to happen until we get there... and a lot of it will depend on him."

Declan, at least, seemed to have made up his mind. "We won't, Orana, unless things have come to a pass so ugly that all of us die. I just want to talk to him. I swear it, just as I did you'd never be a slave again." Their leader. Varric might not have known the plan a moment ago, but he did now. Even if he preferred to hide it under a veneer of silly good cheer, when his old friend spoke in that dragonbone voice... well, suffice to say no one in his right mind put up too much resistance.

"Thank you," she said. "I believe you." A moment's hesitation, struggling to decide if she really did. Varric remembered a similar interior war, in that cave all those years ago, over whether or not she should trust Declan or just strike out on her own to wander. "I'll tell you where to find him." So she'd decided, then. Good; they might end this on favorable terms yet. "He's in the viscount's study, on the third floor. That's where he does his paperwork, and he said that he'd be working on it through the night. His bodyguard will be there with him. She's a tall Rivaini woman, deadly with a sword but reasonable and loyal to his word. If you are as you say you are, then there should not be a problem with her."

"Thank you," Declan said. "You've done more tonight than anyone to bring this to an end without any more bloodshed." He took her shoulders in his huge hands, squeezed them. "Your Papa would be proud of you, Orana."

"I hope so," she said. "I like to think he watches me, from wherever we go when we die." She shrugged. "Sometimes I even forget what his face looks like, outside of dreams."

No one said anything to this; there wasn't anything to say. Carver and Leandra must have been on the Hawkes' minds, Wesley on Aveline's and Marethari Merrill's. He wondered how hazy those beloved faces were. Varric knew damn well that Bartrand looked pretty clear to him, but the complexities of hatred, pity and overwhelming melancholy can sharpen the mind like a razor. They turned to go.

Orana spoke again, before they had fully exited her room. "Ware the Nevarran," she said, "the mortalitasi. He's the greatest danger to you and to Sebastian." Varric thought this would put him on adequate guard, learned soon enough that there was no armor in the world stout enough to handle what was coming.

It didn't take long to reach the third floor office where Bran, Viscount Dumar's seneschal, had kept Kirkwall running on more or less an even keel. The door, scratched and faded beech, was pulled to but not fully shut. It said something, Varric thought, that Sebastian had chosen to conduct his business in this cozy, businesslike room instead of the viscount's larger, more sumptuous suite of offices. The devilish thing, though, was that he was not entirely sure what it did say. Was it telling him that Sebastian was still a humble man with a good heart, or just that a small, out of the way office was more defensible? Ah, who the hell knew.

He did know that the scene in his novelization of the moment that Declan pressed through the door would have to be dressed up a great deal for public consumption. The Prince should have risen dramatically to his feet, stared at the Champion, glacial eyes locking across the room. They should have both whispered, "You!" in husky voices that spoke volumes of surprise and contempt in just one syllable, then bent their great bows back against each other. That was not what happened at all.

Sebastian, for his part, did not even rise. He inclined his head. "Hello Declan, Varric, Aveline, Merrill." He offered Bethany an especially warm smile. "Warden Hawke. This is not entirely unexpected."

They murmured greetings in response. Declan spoke. "How did you know we'd be paying you a visit?"

"My soldiers were catching a greater than normal case of dead, in and around Lowtown," he said. "When that many corpses start piling up, Declan, it's usually either you or a high dragon. Since I didn't see one of those flying over the city..." He shrugged.

"Maker's breath," Varric said. "You've grown a sense of humor. Kind of."

"I've had a lot of time to think of quips to toss at you, and a captive audience to practice them on. Benefit of being a prince." He gestured to the tall, rawboned Rivaini woman beside him. "I'd like to introduce my bodyguard, by the way. Lieutenant Brida Zaro, late of Ayesleigh, hero of this campaign and good friend."

She nodded, but her sinewy brown hand did not leave the grip of her longsword. Varric noticed how she and Aveline bristled at one another. There were two nuts in the same shell, to be sure. If they didn't kill each other they'd likely end up the fastest of friends. But if they did come to blows he wasn't entirely sure that the Prince, Declan and Andraste herself could pull them apart. Sebastian, perhaps a little more astute than he'd been before or at least more perceptive of danger, laid a gentle, restraining hand on her wrist. She relaxed, but still only moved her hand from the sword's grip to its pommel.

"So," Declan said. "Now that we've gotten these pleantries out of the way, I've got something to ask you."

"Go ahead, Declan," Sebastian said. "We might as well be honest with one another here, as much as we can."

"Okay, good." Declan drew a deep breath. "What in the nug-fucking green hell do you think your doing?"

"I'm doing exactly what I said I would, Declan, when you let that abomination walk away, after what he'd done."

"It was a... difficult time, Sebastian. With Meredith out of her mind and Orsino worse, we needed all the help we could get. And besides... Anders was my friend for a long time. We shared meals and conversations, the same as I did with you--hell, the same as you and he did, on more than one occasion. I couldn't just kill him in cold blood; I don't have your righteousness, old friend, nor your rigidity. He was family, as we all were. You understand what that means better than anyone here apart from me and Bethany."

Sebastian winced. "That cuts deep, lad. Will you pull no stop in this?"

"I mean to end a foolish war that the Marches, Thedas itself, can ill afford."

"Foolish..." He sighed. "That's where you misread me, Messere Hawke."

"Then perhaps you would be so kind as to elucidate matters for me, Lord Vael."

"What you said about family..." He steepled his fingers, considered carefully how to proceed. Varric could see all the tells that Sebastian was deep in thought--a line between his eyes, tightening of the smooth skin beside his mouth. This had usually meant, in the past, that he was about to utter a magnificently, godsawfully asinine statement about something he considered profound or poetic. This, the storyteller in him hoped as much as the man realized in dismay, was not going to be one of those. "I understand, Declan, I do... truly. When my father, mother and brothers were slaughtered, I nearly died, I thought something had, inside me. And you helped me to avenge them, do you remember?"

"Aye," Declan said. His voice was husky. "Just as you helped me to avenge... her." He could not bring himself to say Leandra's name, Varric noticed, under these circumstances. "And our vengeance brought none of them back from beyond."

"I didn't, but their blood no longer cried out for justice from the ground." Just like Choir Boy, Varric thought, to quote a section from the extended Canticle of Maferath. "So you will understand what I felt when I lost Elthina, why something had to be done."

"I understand, and would have if you'd tracked Anders and killed him," Declan said, "but not this. Kirkwall is an entire city, Anders only one man. What have the people out there done to suffer for his sins?"

Sebastian either chuckled or sobbed. "What sin is Kirkwall not complicit in, lad? The entire city is built from the bones of slaves and painted with Tevinter blood sacrifices. There seem to be more maleficars and demons here, in this one city, than in the rest of the Free Marches combined. The whole city bears responsibility, in part."

His shoulders sank, and he spoke softly. "I do, in part."

Varric could hold it in no longer. "What? Want to run that one by me again, Choir Boy?"

"Ah, Varric, I wondered how long you could bear to remain silent--this must be a new record for you," Sebastian said. "What I mean is that I consorted with a demon for years, one that wore the flesh of a man but a demon nonetheless for it, and did nothing. I am as guilty by association and share in its crimes just as surely as Merrill does those of Audacity. Just as her Keeper was slain, so did I too lose a woman I loved as much as my own mother."

Merrill moved to protest her innocence, decided against it. This was old, well trodden ground between husband and wife. It did not seem like the time nor place to revisit the arguments. Aveline spoke up, instead. "Neither the elves of the Alienage, the whores of the Blooming Rose nor the poor of Lowtown had anything to do with Anders' plot to destroy the cathedral. What have you gained by punishing them, Sebastian?"

"Nothing, I find, Copper Marigold..." If she was started by his use of her nom de guerre it didn't show on the square, freckled face. "Nothing save a plethora of powerful enemies." He sighed; it was becoming a habit. "This visit may have been for nothing, after all, this whole accursed campaign. The Inquisition has broken my siege. Companies of sellswords march from Antiva, Evelyn Trevelyan has ridden down the Wounded Coast from Ostwick, pirates swept Hercinia's blockade from the Waking Sea, and now the Teyrn of Highever is bringing his soldiers across. I am besieged and do not have enough manpower to prevent a storming of the city."

"What are you planning?" Bethany said. She, too, had tells regarding worry, and Varric saw them in how she twisted a lock of dark, curly hair.

"Nothing terrible, Warden. A general surrender whose terms I am drawing up right now." He indicated the paper in front of him. "You can read them, if you want. I have promised to withdraw to Starkhaven and sign a hundred year pact of peace if my men are left unmolested. I will seek the destruction of Anders still, until he is dead or I am, but this is not the way to do it. The Maker did not bless my actions and so all the early victories have turned to ashes in my mouth. I ordered my captains to stand down after their first fight with you, a couple of nights ago."

"I think someone missed the message," Declan said dryly. "We fought a pair of enchanters called Shimmer and Gloss on our way in, tonight, and what felt like half an army."

"That can't be right," the prince said. "They were to aid in a smooth transfer of power, like all my captains. They shouldn't have been anywhere near you people..."

A growl sounded in the shadows. "They ignored you, fool, because they were never your captains. They were mine."

Its owner emerged. He was short, bald and burly. Red muttonchops swept fiercely off the sides of his head, suggesting Nevarran origins. His bearing was military, and the sumptuous cloak he wore indicated a mortalitasi battlemage of some rank and capability. Sebastian snapped a furious glare at him. "Otto von Trevis! How long have you been there?"

"Long enough to know that you are as soft in the head as I always imagined you were."

"There will be explanations to make, Otto, for all this. What kind of colonel are you, to ignore my orders to facilitate our surrender to Lady Trevelyan, to set your peons to mischief behind my back?"

"The kind who is not your colonel at all, 'Prince.'" To have called him a hurlock could not have dripped with more contempt from the enchanter's lips. He spat at Sebastian's feet. "Your colonel... By the Maker's breath, you are a weakling and stupid besides... you think that your petty revenge was enough to drive a campaign like this?"

Sebastian asked what could be, if not punishment for the murderer of a Grand Cleric and so many others besides, but his question fell on deaf ears. A thunderclap burst in the room. Otto muttered a word of power and reached out to the prince, as if to help him to his feet. Fade energy, raw and crackling on the close air, stretched out towards him. They were all too close, the spell too fast. Varric watched with wide eyes, wondered how these instants always seemed to strech for an eternity. There was nothing anyone could do.


	15. THE PRICE OF PURITY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mortalitasi and the Forbidden Ones duel at Merrill's behest in the Viscount's ruined palace.

The mortalitasi Otto von Trevis' bolt of Fade energy snaked toward Sebastian. Even one as calm and ready to meet the Maker as Starkhaven's prince flinched from it--any man would have. Varric thought, for an absurd moment, how he might leave that out of his novelization of these events, let the world believe that this man had met the end with serene dignity. The things you came up with, at times like this. He had to laugh at himself, later, for any fool knew that if they did not do something about this bullheaded Nevarran enchanter then none of them would be leaving alive.

Aveline acted before anyone else could even form a reasonable reaction, as she almost always did, training pushing her body faster than a man could think. She thrust her shield in front of Sebastian, caught the blast on it. Well turned silverite, befitting the Guard-Captain, absorbed the energy. She crumpled with a cry and clutched her arm, cursing sulfurously. It twisted away from her body, obviously broken.

"Fools, all of you. You can't see what my king and I have seen." He tossed more balls of energy. Bethany, with an instant to prepare, threw up a barrier to absorb most of their impact. She responded with a lash made of lightning. Otto disregarded it with his own barrier and a flick of the long, smooth enchanter's rod he carried. Her eyes narrowed. All this, Varric surmised, meant that they were dealing with a sorceror orders of magnitude more powerful than Shimmer and Gloss had been. Great. Just marvelous.

Still, if you've got to go down, then go down kicking. And besides, they'd beaten some dangerous magic users before--just ask Orsino, right? Well, if he hadn't turned into an abomination against the Maker and man before dying. Varric let go a volley from Bianca. The quarrels crackled and shattered against Otto's barrier, but their clatter distracted him long enough for Sebastian to lunge, trying to snake a knife through.

He cried out, hand burned by the energies that sputtered and hissed around his former adviser. Otto leapt over them, aided by his magic, and through the door. The fight spilled out into the wide, open third floor mezzanine where petitioners to Seneschal Bran had brought their business. Varric grinned; giving them room to manuever had been Otto's first mistake. Hopefully they could make it his last.

He and Bethany engaged in a tremendous battle of wills. He pushed, she tugged, he launched an attack, she countered with one of her own. Their magics fit, metaphysical lock and key. Spells subtle and blunt flew around the room. It began to take on the smell that Varric associated with the aftermath of a lightning storm, where the very air itself is burned. Declan, always the best sharpshooter than Varric had ever known--painful though it was to say--took well aimed shots, looking for the weak places in Otto's barrier. If just one could slip through, he'd fall unprotected at the younger Hawke's mercy. Varric, who'd seen that mercy just tonight, wouldn't have traded places with him.

He and Sebastian, neither a slouch in the archery department, hurled their own missiles, hoping at least to distract the man enough for an opening to develop. Merrill... had remained in the room, with Aveline and Sebastian's bodyguard, Brida. He wondered why, thought that she might have been helping tend to their injured friend. Aveline Hendyr, hero a hundred times over and again tonight, to save a man she'd been fighting for weeks. Merrill didn't know any healing spells, but any Dalish Keeper or their First would be versed in basic leechcraft, the kind that could ease the pain of a broken arm.

Seconds later, at the first lull in their battle, Otto rapped his staff against the floor twice, three times, six more. An odd pattern rattled through the hall. "What are you doing now?" Declan said. "Trying to intimidate us with your festive drumming? I must admit that you're talented, but I've heard much worse."

"The famous Champion of Kirkwall," Otto said. He sneered, face twisted and ugly in the harsh light of his and Bethany's staffs. "Always ready with a joke--and that was a truly stupid one. Don't you know, boy, that this city is built of bones and painted with the blood of a million slaves?" He shut his eyes and mumbled, "Magister Emerius, let your city's sacrifice aid me. Send me your workforce. Arise and suffer not these interlopers here."

Something rumbled, deep in the earth. Rats scuttled behind the walls, ten million fingernails on a million coffins. Declan grimaced. "That sounded... bad."

"Pretty awful poetry, in my professional opinion," Varric said. "It's like his drumming, though, I've heard worse."

"I'm not sure I have," Bethany said. "We might be in some trouble, here."

Cracks opened along the walls and floor. Varric's eyes widened. Throughout Thedas, adherents of Andrastism burned their dead--to honor their prophetess, on one hand, and as a sensible precaution against the possession of a corpse by Fade spirits on the other. In only two places did such an arrangment not hold true: Nevarra and Tevinter. A line had opened up across the ages, between Emerius Krayvan and Otto von Trevis.

It occurred to Varric that Sera should have been there. Only she could have expressed the situation in terms eloquently profane enough. It was the last thought that he had time to process for quite some time.

Walking corpses boiled from the crevices, maggots from beneath the bandage over a fetid wound. They scrambled, clawed, tripped each other, got up and kept on coming or just crawled on their bellies. Varric popped a grenade into their midst, design based on one of Sera's flasks. It burst among them, lit more than a few on fire. They flailed, igniting their fellows. Some fell, too badly damaged to rise for a third time. More kept coming, brands in the hallway's early morning gloom.

He grimaced, loaded another grenade and shot again. There were maybe a dozen of these, of different types... maybe they'd make a difference. Declan and Sebastian, perhaps of the same mind, drew and loosed in the same, good rythym that they'd always had. Most of the shafts found their mark, in a rotting skull, and put the poor soul down for good.

It still wasn't enough. Nothing made a difference. Bethany, struggling to maintain the barrier around them, searched for the counter-spell. More corpses came, more, enraged, devouring, clawing at their protection. Amaranthine sparks lit their fingers on fire, but still they raked, dug, moaned their plight to the Maker or anyone else who could hear. It wouldn't last much longer. Someone would break through, or poor Sunshine would collapse from the strain of keeping the interlopers out and fighting a magical battle of this magnitude. Three archers... yeah, Varric didn't like their chances a lot.

They improved, though, in the next moment. Brida Zaro, Sebastian's bodyguard, and Aveline stormed out of the office. Each took her place on the front line. Brida chopped into corpses with her sword, battered them aside with her shield. Some fell with sundered skulls, others she reduced to helplessness through sheer degradation of their physical form. Aveline fought beside her, broken arm and shield strapped against her flank, cutting and thrusting with businesslike efficiency. This wasn't fencing, not even butchery, just cutting wood into cords. Varric had to smile, at least a little; he had been sure they'd get on well, if they avoided slaughtering each other.

Something pricked the back of his mind. "Hey, Aveline... where the hell is Daisy?"

"I take it that's your little elf friend?" Brida said. "Maker's breath, dwarf, you have so many names for everyone that I struggle to keep up."

"It's a failing." He launched a lightning grenade. It froze a dozen corpses in place. They danced like grotesque puppets. "So?"

"She said she had something in mind, Varric," Aveline said. Sweat stood out in large beads on a face paler than even Fereldan ancestry should have allowed. "We just have to keep them busy for a while longer."

"Busy they look like they're going to remain. The deuced things don't ever stop moving," Declan said. He shot once, twice, three times in succession. Three corpses fell, adding to the bulwark around their barrier. More just climbed over or started digging through. "Hopefully we can keep them busy dying, er, dying again instead of killing us."

Sebastian, shooting mechanically, seemed like he had heard nothing of the conversation. He called, almost plaintively. "Why, Otto? I gave you a home, when the Cumberland Circle declared for the Libertarians. You told me that you were loyal and wished to serve--an Aequitarian to the bottoms of your feet, even if not a Loyalist."

"I am, and have served well--my magic has served man, or at least a man, and will continue to, just as the Canticle reads." He laughed. "That man is just not you, Prince."

His huge, blue eyes grew even wider. "You betray me, then, Enchanter?"

"No." He struggled, for a moment. It looked like Bethany had come close to breaking his concentration. She nodded to Sebastian, encouraged him to keep goading her opponent. They were matched close to evenly. One slip could end this.

Otto regained his composure. "No. I did not betray you. Betrayal would imply that I was ever your man, Sebastian Vael of Starkhaven. I have never been. I serve, and have always served, my king--Markus Pentaghast."

Varric almost had to laugh. "That explains it, then... the one thing that was out of place. Some of the reports that mentioned Nevarran Lancers probing the hills--then withdrawing as soon as anyone got a look at them, or at least going deep underground." He shook his head. "No offense, Choir Boy, but you got played like a finely tuned lute. I knew this had to have something more going on than simple revenge!"

He glanced at Hawke, loaded an ice grenade. He was running low; Otto, unfortunately, didn't seem to have any shortage of corpses. How the hell many unquiet dead were there in Kirkwall, anyway? "I just thought that our friend the prince might have grown some ambition and decided to branch out from Starkhaven, get himself a little kingdom going. Sorry, Declan... I didn't expect this."

"His pride made him remarkably easy to manipulate," Otto said. "He would have been a prime target for possession, were any self-respecting demon interested in taking up residence in a head that empty. Virellius and I developed the plan, together, when we heard tell of the letters he kept sending your Guard-Captain there, begging for aid in finding the fugitive apostate Anders."

"Virellius..." Declan thought a moment, shot another corpse. This one he caught through the throat. It didn't fall. "That sounds decidedly Tevinter."

"He is," Otto said. "A mage and political philosopher with the clearest head I have ever known. He came to me, in my capacity as King Markus' court enchanter, with a proposition. I heard him and found it wise."

"And what wisdom did this sage from the north offer?" Varric said. "I'm sure that we'll all be blown away and be much less upset that your corpse friends are trying to chew our faces off." One nearly breached the barrier. Varric kicked its head away. The corpse fell. Another took its place.

"The world is changing," Otto said. "The Qunari squat in the far north, at Par Vollen, content to mill like ants and torture mages or anyone else who dares not or cannot conform to their barbarous Qun. They will not forever, though. The savage things once swept all across Antiva, Rivain and the Free Marches, could have conquered all Thedas had the might of Orlais, Nevarra and Tevinter combined not thrown them back. The Orlesians have forgotten, sunk in the depths of their decadent Game--Tevinter remembers. They have never stopped fighting."

He paused, a moment, to repel a particularly trenchant assault from Bethany. "They will come again. The Oxmen have great strength, fanaticism and their gaatlok powder. We have numbers and our mages, free and loyal mages to fight against their slaves, but that may not be enough. The time for backwaters like Ferelden or Rivain, nations of squabbling children like the Free Marches or Antiva, has come to an end. Only the iron strength of an empire can throw this scourge back."

Declan scratched his head. "And the seat of this empire is going to be Kirkwall? I'm not sure I follow you, man."

Varric did, or thought he did at least. "Not one empire, Declan, three. He plans for a Nevarra that extends from the Blasted Hills to the Amaranthine Ocean. Tevinter would have reconquered Antiva and Rivain, and Orlais Ferelden." He let the revelation sink in, shot his last grenade--an icy bomb--into the midst of the undead. "I can't imagine Celene liking the sound of that, though... not really. She's too subtle."

"She did balk at open war," Otto said. "But she was not our choice for Orlais' ruler. We would have preferred Gaspard de Chalons--a chevalier of the old school and warrior through to his marrow. Your Inquisitor made that impossible, so our operatives began dropping hints, planting the notion that King Alistair could set his queen aside and marry Celene." He laughed. "After all, Anora and that fool of an ex-Warden haven't produced an heir, yet... perhaps Celene would prove more fertile?"

"And the marriage was born under acrimony, anyway," Varric said. "You counted on Alistair being all too happy to set aside the daughter of his enemy. It's relatively brilliant, I must give you that much."

"Brilliant enough to save us all, Master Dwarf," Otto said. "I can see you approve, even if you will not say so. You do not wish to live under the Qun any more than I do." Varric held his tongue. It was not as if the enchanter had not made a few more valid points than he was willing to readily admit while fighting off a horde of walking dead men...

"I've only got one question," Sebastian said. "Why did you choose Starkhaven and myself to bring this plan to fruition?"

"Because, my dear prince, you were an easy mark. Your thirst for vengeance would cover the conquest of Kirkwall, allowing matters to proceed to the point that soldiers from Quarinus could march through the Arlathan Forest on Brynnlaw. Nevarra proper could enter the fray, then, and I would have told you everything before we moved on to besiege Ostwick. You'd have ruled after, if you wanted, as satrap of the Free Marches."

"Never!" Sebastian glared. "Such villainy...'

Otto shrugged. "Then you'd have died gloriously in combat--I'd have made sure of it--and one of your cousins could have ruled. They're an ambitious sort, if I remember my recent history well."

Sebastian's face grew darker. He sped an arrow at Otto. It burned away into purple sparks on his barrier. Declan spoke. "It's a good plan--it really is, I am quite impressed--but why are you telling us? I know that you're a bad guy and all, and that those love the sounds of their own voices more than life itself, but this is rather incriminating stuff to people who'd probably prefer it remain quiet, and things have rather fallen apart on you..."

Otto rolled his eyes. "It's because none of you are going to survive the next hour, nor will the armies of the Inquisition allies be able to stop me. There are corpses enough around Kirkwall to scour the city, and enough tears in the Veil to bring through spirits to reinforce them besides." He nodded. "Hate them if you will for their utter lack of grace, but that's one thing that the Wardens at Adamant understood... spirits make a fine and inexhaustible source of fodder for the battlefield."

"Oh, all right," Declan said. "So you're utterly mad, then. I was just making sure. You were sort of making sense--Maker knows I've got enough sense to fear the Qunari--but then you started rambling about a demon army. Carry on."

"Mock if you must, Declan Hawke," Otto said. "It seems an ill way to spend your last breaths, to me, but if I am mad then my opinion cannot be trusted." He began to murmur a spell, working to reinforce his force and open rifts all over the city. Varric winced. This was going to be a bloodbath--and not just for them, for the Ferelden, Ostwick and Antivan forces coming to lift the siege, too.

Before the corpses could renew their assault, Merrill seemed to float out of the office--no, strike that. Varric goggled. She was literally floating, bare toes an inch or two off the slimy, corpse galled carpet. Her eyes and vallaslin burned a murky green. "Otto von Trevis," she said. Her voice seemed to roll from the corners of the hall and the back of the mind all at once. "You seem to have forgotten the primary rules of magic... you can never use spirits without them using you, and you must never assume that your opponents don't know some of the same folks you do."

She smiled, a wild, feral smile that Varric didn't like and could tell her husband didn't either, and raised a short knife. She drew it down her forearm, dug a longer, deeper cut than he'd ever seen her use before. Blood welled forth, dark and smooth as sin wrapped in black silk. She growled, deep in her throat. "Unbound desire and wisdom, formless terror in the shadows... Gaxhang, Xebenkeck, Imshael!"

Otto's eyes grew wide. He understood what Varric now knew, and oh it was an awful knowledge indeed. Merrill had given up the Eluvian, but made a second obsessive career out of studying the Forbidden Ones, demons so powerful and terrible that even the memory of their dreams could warp the waking world. This must have been building, this power, since they fought Xebenkeck all those years ago. He understood, now, why she had insisted on being with the Inquisitor, when Suledin Keep had fallen, why she'd prowled the alleys of Denerim all alone at night, during their visit to the city, what Fenris had meant when he accused her of meddling with things best forbidden and forgotten.

Varric knew, just as Otto knew--just as both saw Bethany now realize. Oh, but how he wished he hadn't known, or maybe could forget.

Three rifts opened, glaring sickly green. A demon in the form of a revenant shambled through each one, armor clanking. One wore the mossy scales of an Emerald Knight of the Dales, another the furs and chain of an Alamannri huscarl, the last a Templar's gleaming silverite plate, now tarnished and pitted by the foul energies swirling within. Each bore the weapon of its costume, dar'misaan and dar'misu, great axe, morning star and shield.

They waded through the corpses, wielding cold steel with ruthless efficiency and no small glee. Hewing, chopping, slashing. Heads rolled away from them, staring with sightless eyes. Limbs fell to writhe a moment and lie still on the ruined carpet. Neither corpse's teeth nor fingernails could gain purchase nor rend the eldritch armor. They drew foes to them in a vortex, slammed them and tore them into gory chunks.

Bethany fell half into a trance, mumbling. She drew deep inside herself, plumbed a well heretofore untapped to reinforce their barriers. Though using magic--any magic--was dangerous in such company, the possibility of an incident of friendly fire under the fog of war seemed even worse.

Otto, bold as a highly skilled and ambitious enchanter must be, stopped calling for the dead and lashed out against the storming revenants with a tempest. Bolts of lightning raced along the floor and ceiling, through Otto's own decomposing forces, up and down the ferocious demons' metal armor.

None of them even seemed to notice. The mortalitasi quailed, reinforced his own barrier, and began to gather power. "Stupid girl," he said. Sweat beaded his bald head. "What have you done?"

"I've done what needed doing," Merrill said. Her voice held the same queer, flat affect it had before. "And damn the consequences."

"I'm afraid that might be the case," Sebastian said. Like Declan and Varric, he had laid his bow aside. There was no need for it, now.

With the horde of dead laid waste save a few twitching scraps, the Forbidden Ones turned their attention towards Otto's barrier. Purple sparks flashed in the hallway, casting weird shadows in the early morning gloom. It began to flicker and weaken; full dispersal was not far away. Otto, able to concentrate his attention now, captured the revenant simulating a Templar in his crushing prison spell. Waves of spirit energy buffeted the demon, raining blows to warp and crack the aged armor. Elements of it clattered on the floor, first besagew and vambrace, then poleyn, greave and cuisse.

Finally, a spirit leapt out of the hole left by gorget and bevor. Varric thought he recognized Imshael. It made sense, after all, for him to take the form of a Templar. The remaining pieces of armor crashed to the floor. The spirit swirled around Bethany's barrier. It giggled. "When next we meet, Merrill." Something might have blown a kiss then. Whatever it was made Varric feel in sore need of a long, hot bath, lots of something strong to drink and hours of sleep afterward.

The other revenants, Gaxhang and Xebenkeck, backed away to take stock of the situation. This didn't look good. Otto was a powerful sorceror backed into a corner. His already puissant magic was spurred by desperation to ever greater heights. If their dagger in the hole couldn't score Wicked Grace, then what could?

Merrill knew. "Keep our barrier strong, Bethany. This could grow quite ugly." Bethany nodded and offered a lop-sided grin. As if it hadn't already. Declan figured it out, too, before she did it--tried to stop her, even--but the whorls of power radiating around and through her slim body were too great. He threw an arm up across his face. Merrill spoke in a voice like the earth cracking. "Garas, shan enfenim."

Another rift opened, right behind Otto. Varric had never seen an archdemon, apart from the Elder One's homemade copy, but recognized this as the facsimile of one nonetheless. It was also, he realized, the head and neck attached to the arms he'd seen the night they'd come to Kirkwall, coming out of the rifts to pull men limb from limb at Merrill's behest. "Formless terror in the shadows," he muttered. "Andraste's grace." Even he could not bring himself to casual irreverence in the face of this.

Bethany shook with the effort of keeping their barrier intact, keeping out things that ought not get inside by means subtler than a walking corpse's strength. "That's not what it really looks like, you know. Formless terror... implies it can be anything. Knows bloody well what will turn our blood to water though, doesn't it?"

Sebastian rocked, praying. Brida and Aveline slumped against one another, too exhausted to be as terrified as they seemed to know they should but frozen in place all the same. Otto wheeled, threw his arms up, tried to launch a lance with all his power right down the demon's gullet.

It didn't seem to notice. Enough power to level the palace they were in, and the thing didn't even blink--could demons blink? Varric didn't know, didn't care to find out. Terrible jaws holding more teeth than they possibly could closed around Otto, shook him once, and swallowed him at a gulp. It was probably for the best, all things considered, that they did not see what those awful fangs had done to him. Even hardened adventurers, after all, had their limits. Whatever it was didn't stop him from screaming all the way down, though. Varric suppressed a shudder, saw his friends struggling to do the same.

It turned baleful green eyes on Merrill. "Sa vunin, da'len." It was impossible to put into words the depths of mockery, scorn, pure hatred in those simple words. "Sa vunin la han bellanar." It faded, withdrew into its rift. Laughter so deep that it could be felt in the bowels more than heard lingered.

Gaxhang and Xebenkeck raised their blades in salute and backed into rifts of their own. Tentatively, Bethany let their barrier drop. Merrill slumped to the floor, eyes rolled back into her head to show whites. A line of dark blood ran from her nose, across her lips and chin. That from her arm had soaked the white shift she wore scarlet.

Declan cradled her in his arms. "Ma vhenan, suledin dareth?"

She clung to him. "Vin, m'arlath. Ir eireth.'

He shushed her, rocked her. Varric looked away. This didn't seem like the kind of moment to intrude on, even by watching.


	16. Matters of State and Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party, Sebastian, Josephine, Blackwall and Evelyn Trevelyan discuss matters of state on a hard won morning after the long night.

It wasn't the sort of moment that could last. The world at large didn't consider matters of such delicacy as important as getting on with the business of life, war and the great affairs of the day. A series of booms sounded against the door, at the end of the third floor's great hall. Varric and Brida looked at each other, then the door. He wondered, knew she did too, what new horror might come storming through it. Aveline struggled to rise, argued with the pain in her arm, lost and fell to her knees again. Bethany wavered on her feet, eyes unfocused. She had been exhausted by the effort of keeping their barrier intact against such a furious assault. She leaned against Sebastian. He seemed in another world, disgusted and aghast at what he had indirectly wrought. "No better than Anders and his demon," Varric heard him mutter a time or two. "No better than Vengeance."

Declan and Merrill remained wrapped up in each other. Her eyes fluttered, now. She seemed to be recovering, but the going was slow. This kind of magic... well, maybe the Chantry didn't just forbid it because of possessions and abominations and all the freaky ass shit that everyone had just seen. The stress it put on the body seemed enormous--twice in as many days had nearly killed Merrill--and for her to fall in the midst of casting such a spell would have proven disastrous. For a demon to claim the body of one like her... the resulting arcane horror would have joined the other Forbidden Ones, free to wreak whatever havoc on Thedas they saw fit.

The door burst inward. No more time for reflection. Everyone present heaved a heavy sigh of relief at the sight of their new interlopers, though. Evelyn Trevelyan, Varric recognized her dark curls and cheerful, horsey face from a visit to her brother at Skyhold months ago, stormed through. He had to smile, in spite of everything. He'd loved her bluff, good-natured way of taking His Inquisitorialness Mischy-Mop down a peg or two. It was a comfort to see someone so gloriously vibrant limned against the rising sun as it poured through a third floor balcony window, especially after what had just passed.

Two familiar figures flanked her. One, a slight woman, wore the long, flowing skirts and soft leather of an Antivan duellist. A short, midnight blue cloak swirled around her shoulders. The other, a hulking brute in cracked, dented volcanic aurum battlemaster's armor, hovered protectively near her shoulder. Josephine and Blackwall! It could be no one else. Varric's heart leapt at the sight of them. Another woman, taller than Josephine but lanky and rawboned like Cassandra, stuck close to Blackwall's side. She wore chain and plate, wrought from embrium and veridium, and long, flaming hair streamed out from under the barbute she wore. Varric didn't recognize her, but felt like he should introduce himself... an image like that couldn't get left out of the novelization of this whole thing. It would be a crime against poetry!

Poetics were not a major concern of Evelyn's. "Maker's wrinkly ballsack, people, what the hell have you done, here? Invited every dead Pentaghast in the Nevarran royal catacombs?"

"You don't know how close you're cutting it to the truth, Evelyn," Varric said. "And you don't know how good it is to see your face."  
  
She brayed the laughter he remembered from games of Wicked Grace and dirty limerick making during her visit. "If I had a silver for everyone who said that to me, Varric, I'd have at least a copper." She wrinkled her nose, waved her hand near it. "Andraste's arse this place stinks like magic... it's just like when my brother was little and made a mess in his diaper."

"It stinks like magic because there has been powerful magic afoot, here, Lady Trevelyan." Josephine. "I'm sure you can see the state of poor repair that they are in."

She grunted in agreement. Blackwall spoke. "No poorer than we are, love. Here I thought we'd walked into the perfect siege--no actual fighting, just accepting swords from blokes who intended to surrender without a struggle--and then we find ourselves swept under a tide of the bloody devouring dead."

She beamed at him. "You were magificent, though, caro... I had never seen something so magnificent as you hurling those dead men aside with your shield, hammering them to dust. It made my heart thrill."

"I think mine skipped a beat or two, as well," he said. "I'll let you know as soon as we go back to Lowtown and pick it up so we can check it out."

"Wait," Varric said. "Wait. You're telling me that the mortalitasi threw a powerful enough spell to raise corpses all over the city?"

"Damn well yes," Evelyn said. "Bloody things swarmed us. We took to fighting, along with the Starkhaveners, Highever men-at-arms and Antivan mercenari alike. There's nothing to help bygones become bygones like a man that far past his prime trying to gnaw your face off, let me tell you."

She blew out an irritable breath. "Don't we burn the dead in Thedas so we can avoid just this sort of nonsense?"

"Yes," Bethany said. "But I don't think the corpses were all physically in the city, strictly speaking. Our foe, Otto von Trevis formerly of the Nevarran court, was a man of incredible power. He was able to form constructs of the dead out of the Fade. Even those properly burned and interred as ashes were fair game for him to turn to those nefarious purposes."

Evelyn snorted. "I'd say there ought to be a law, but there already bloody is one. Doesn't seem to have had a hell of a lot of effect, though."

"Strange days, my lady," Varric said. "And hard on us all in here, too."

She looked them over. "I can imagine." Her gaze turned toward the Prince of Starkhaven. "So, Se-bastard... I always said you'd come to no good end, even back when we were little kids. Got anything to say for yourself, wot?"

"Nothing, Evelyn. Only that I acted with the best of intentions."

"Good pavement for the path to hell," Blackwall muttered.

Sebastian went on, as if he'd not spoken. This seemed like something he'd prepared and would be damned if he wasn't going to get through. He was that kind of guy. "I ask no clemency for myself; since you seem to be in command of this relief force, dispose of me how you see fit. I only ask that my men and officers be spared, save those you can convict fairly of violating the laws of war. They followed me into this out of fealty and I would not see them punished for it."

"In command, eh?" Evelyn scratched her dark curls. "Turns out it's not as simple as all that. I'm the highest ranking local officer, but I'm a bann. The teyrn of Highever is a teyrn, but he's a bloody dog lord and no Marcher's going to follow him--no offense to you, Champion."

Declan didn't even look up. "None taken, my lady."

"Good man." She sighed. "Well, unless we're going to bring my father in--and he'd refuse it, anyway, since it would be poor form for one Marcher ruler to pass judgement on another--I guess we're going to have to let my baby brother decide what to do with you." She pulled a face. "Bloody painful to admit, though. Ugh."

"The Herald of Andraste is a fair man, and just," Sebastian said. "I submit myself to him. I ask, again, only that my men be spared."

"Don't see why that would be a problem, honestly," she said. "And if it is I'll put in a good word for them. Like I said, when everything went pear shaped out there they fought as bravely as anyone could have wanted. Bloody earned their pardon." She glanced around the hall at the carnage they'd produced. "Looks like you might have done the same, old salt."

"It would be more than I could ask for."

"Posh, you're a silly git--always were one, always will be. There's better things to do than letting you flagellate yourself before the Maker. We've a wedding to plan!"

Varric tugged his chest hair, feeling befuddled. Evelyn had that effect on people. "Back up a second, Ev... who's getting married? Surely not you..."

"Damn your eyes for even suggesting it, Master Tethras. Not until you're ready to make an honest woman of me!" She brayed laughter. "Maker no. It's your good ambassador and this fine champion, here. I was there to see them make the compact!"

Varric grinned. "Good on you, Hero, for finally taking a run at it. Or, er... on you, Ruffles, for finally dragging him down and explaining matters to him."

Josie blushed. "This wasn't exactly how we planned to tell you."

Varric shrugged. "It makes me no nevermind... I love a wedding however we get around to it."

"Yes, quite."

"Just make sure you let me deliver the longest toast."

"We'll be there all night," Blackwall said. His companion, the tall, lovely chevalier in dark embrium, gently jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. Their armor made the sublte gesture clang absurdly, but Varric recognized the easy friendship that had grown between the often difficult to approach Warden and this young woman. A new Inquisition agent? Fantastic... and he imagined she had quite a story to share for his book. Blackwall turned to her and grunted. "Just for that, Alys, I'm only letting you sing one song." She rolled large, mossy eyes at him.

Song? Varric nodded, lost for a moment in reverie. A chevalier and bard besides... she would have an interesting story indeed. He grew lost in thought, a moment, before Evelyn interrupted his woolgathering. "You said something about the Nevarran court... care to tell me what that's all about?"

Varric did, with Sebastian filling in details as best he could in his poor state of mind and Brida offering her own commentary. They made sure to insist that the mortalitasi had been influenced by an operative from Tevinter, and that the ailing King Markus had not been implicated in the plot. Whether it was true or not, no one could actually say. Varric suspected it was, but the ramifications otherwise were not wise for exploration at this moment, especially with the Elder One and his legions causing mischief all over the continent at will. It would have been easiest of all to write of Virellius as a Venatori agitator and leave things there, but Varric couldn't believe matters were quite that simple. Were they ever? He'd have to take those matters up with Mischa and Cassandra, the next time they were alone.

They glossed over how Otto had actually been defeated, attributing it to an enormously powerful spell that Bethany and Merrill had cooked up between them. Though a collaboration that fast and destructive was difficult to imagine, certain elements made it plausible, at least, and explained why both mages were so much the worse for wear. "We've all known each other for better than a decade," Declan said, "and Merrill and I have been married for half a dozen years. Who better for her to work a spell with than my sister?"

Merrill, wan but sitting up and conscious, said, "Aye... Bethany's magic and mine fit like a hand in a glove. He was greatly powerful but... two is always greater than one yes?" Talking fast, they managed to avoid discussing rifts and the Forbidden Ones. This seemed like it was for the best, especially in the presence of a scion of the Trevelyan family, every third member of which was somehow affiliated with the Chantry or Templar Order. Another issue to discuss later, in private, with Mischa. Varric disguised a smile with his hand, pretended coughing. This conversation might be an okay one to even leave Cassandra out of the loop on...

Evelyn nodded, mulling things over. Josephine and Varric shared a glance. Something smoldered in the depths of her large, inky eyes, and what she suspected Nightingale would work like the dickens to ferret out. The Inquisition would be meeting over the war table, sooner rather than later. Ah, well. Just have to come up with an intriguing enough story to cover things, right? The life of a writer...

Sebastian spoke. "Ev, I need to ask... did you happen to see three people on your way up?"

"I saw a lot of people, Se-bastard, but a hell of a lot of them were dead and trying to bite my ears off. Anyone in particular?"

"Two dwarves," he said, "one younger and one older--father and son--and an elf woman with fair hair."

"Those you mean?" Evelyn shuddered. "That was a weird, grisly scene, let me tell you."

The faces of everyone in the party fell. "You mean..." Declan said. "All three of them?"

Josie stepped in. "What Lady Trevelyan means is that we found the three of them sitting on a blackened section of floor, surrounded by corpses and the remains of shades and ash wraiths, covered with gall." At this Sebastian came near to fainting in relief. "The elder dwarf and young woman were shaken, but all right. The younger dwarf seemed..." She struggled to find the right word. "Rather cheerful."

Varric had to actually laugh. "Sounds like Sandal to me. Let me guess... he only said one word?"

Blackwall grunted. "Not quite. Two."

Bethany chimed in. "Enchantment!"

Her brother said, "Boom."

Josie looked carefully at the Hawkes, trying to scry any meaning from them before going on.

"Yes... how in the world did you know?"

They shared a quick glance and said, nearly together, "Old family joke." Josie let the matter drop.

"Yes, quite," Evelyn said. To Varric, "Damned if I know how the little fellow managed it, seeing as you people don't have any magic." She chuckled. "If we could bottle what that little chap was selling then we'd be in fine shape against those Oxmen that your Nevarran conspirator was so exercised about."

She drummed her fingers against her breastplate. "That's going to be a problem, especially since he had a better point than I feel totally comfortable admitting. I'm damn sure not giving up my family's seat to some arse-biscuit from the east, but the smaller, fractured nations like Antiva and the Free Marches have a good chance of getting crushed underfoot whenever Par Vollen decides to get out of the heat and march south. Bit of a sticky wicky, lads."

"I think I have a suggestion that might work," Varric said. "Or at least start the process towards working."

"I'm all ears, then," Evelyn said. "I'm not nearly as good at thinking these matters through as I am at hitting things, you know. That's probably why it's a good thing that Mischy's the Inquisitor, not me."

"We need a grand council of Thedas."

She raised an eyebrow. "You really think that will help?"

"It can't hurt."

"He's right," Josie said. "All of the crowned heads must be invited, and Masters of the Merchant Houses in Antiva, members of what's left of the Chantry and Circles--Fiona and Vivienne, at least, and Ser Barris. We can put out word to Bhelen in Orzammar, too. That city is a staunch ally of order and I cannot imagine Bhelen as amicable to Par Vollen's... heavy handed... approach to affairs." She counted on her fingers. "The Dalish clans might also be worth contacting."

"They will not be overjoyed to work with shemlen," Merrill said, "but may relish the notion of giving up everything they have left to the Qunari even less. I think that many will come, if not most."

"Sounds like more wind than Uncle Montogmery after a big dinner," Evelyn said, "but I'm willing to play along if everyone else is. I can talk to my father about it, at least."

"And Alistair is here," Blackwall said.

"Really?" Aveline. She seemed well enough, save her arm. "I had heard Fergus Cousland was leading the assault."

"He insisted," Josie said. "With no heir, yet, I am surprised they did not hear Anora's screams all the way in Brynnlaw."

"Always knew I liked that man," Evelyn said. "Good, stout chap. The kind of king those Dog Lords need."

"I'd like to meet him again," Aveline said. She winced. "After I find Donnic and Brennan and the others and make sure they're okay."

"We need to check on Lia and Athenril, too," Merrill said. "I hope Elegant's house stood up to the assault well enough."

"Sounds like a busy day we've all ahead of us," Evelyn said. She gazed on the destruction. It was, Varric imagined, this bad all over the city. "And what a hell of a mess we have to clean up... all of it."

"Well, Ev," Varric said, "you know how it goes. 'No rest for the wicked.'"

She nodded and closed the quote. "'Until we close our eyes for good.'" She let hers slip shut for a moment. "Well, that wasn't quite for good--quite." She sighed. "Let's go forth and make the best of things gentlemen, ladies."

They started for the door. Declan carried Merrill, like he had after their wedding, and Brida supported Aveline on her shoulder. It seemed like a metaphor, maybe, for how they could weather any storm that came. Two warriors, who fully expected to kill each other, strolling like old companions. A human and elf, united by love and a life built in common. Strength through diversity. Varric smiled. Yeah, he thought, we might be okay, after all. We just might.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was fun, and the longest thing I had written to date! I hope everyone really did enjoy reading it... doing it helped me through a hard time and gave me the confidence to write an original novel which will be coming out soon, too so... that was cool.


End file.
